The Great Day That Dawns
by AlissonLoon
Summary: Georgina Stackhouse has spent most of her life beneath the guardianship of Adele Stackhouse, despite her unsure origins. Like Sookie, she's always laid low—perhaps lower, and has been pinned as the fetching yet shy Stackhouse everyone's heard a variety of outlandish rumors about. Alongside Sookie, she discovers her key role in the supernatural world, and love as well. (OCxERIC)
1. The Road Goes On Forever

The old house creaked as I took tentative steps down the hall to the kitchen. It was empty—had been for quite some time. No one had been cooking since Gran died, we'd all merely pick up a half-priced burger or milkshake at Merlotte's when we were hungry.

The window above the sink was open and a cool Louisiana draft floated in, surrounding me like an icy shawl. The light of dawn shed violet rays onto the vase on the window sill, full of wilting bishop's lace and pincushion flowers. I frowned at the sagging stems and dulling color of the plants. Gran always sat out that same combination of garden flowers—Sookie had been replenishing them, but it looked as though she'd forgotten.

I pulled the vase down from its place on the windowsill and pulled the flowers from the murky waters. A layer of slime from the old water coated the stems of the flowers, so I took a paper towel and wiped it all off before tying a white string tightly around the bunch of stems. I carefully dangled the dead flowers upside-down from an old, unoccupied nail between the window and the cabinets.

In only my nightgown and barefooted, I opened the screen door to the backyard and walked on the nimble tips of my toes into Gran's gardens. In this heat, I'd been making sure to water them every day and they'd been doing mighty fine. With a pair of garden scissors from the kitchen, I began to snip at the baby's breath that sprinkles like snow across Gran's moonlit garden and her closed blue gentians.

"Why would you want them if they're closed?" A deep voice erupts behind my crouched body. The scissors nearly go flying from hands as I gasp. After catching my surprise, I shake my head angrily and lay my hand over my beating heart, turning my head slowly to see the towering and dark—despite his fair, Norwegian features—Eric Northman.

"Don't you creep up on me like that! I could'a cut myself with these scissors!" I exclaimed, standing up warily and wrapping my arms over my chest, afraid he may see through the thin fabric which I wear nothing beneath.

"I asked you a question," he said, raising a blonde eyebrow carefully. I sighed, releasing the tight grip of the flowers in my right hand.

"Well," I began. "When they're closed, they wish sweet dreams on someone."

"And upon whom are you wishing sweet dreams?" He inquired.

I pursed my lips, looking at the closed, indigo flowers. "For Gran. May she have the sweetest dreams up in Heaven."

"And the little white flowers?"

"Baby's breath. Purity of heart, one of the things 'bout her I'll remember the most."

"I see," he nodded. I turned to begin inside again and I felt Eric's long shadow against my back. "But they'll die in a few days, weeks—more or less. What's the point?"

I sighed at his occasional lack of wisdom; how someone as old as him overlooked the beauty of ephemeral life was beyond me. I refilled the vase with water as Eric stood near, playing with the newly-dangling flowers beside the window.

"They remind me of her."

"But they'll wilt soon. Would that not just bring more grief?"

"They're still beautiful when they wilt. The lives that come and go are the most beautiful. Everything needs to wilt away at some point; you need an end to have a story, just like you need a beginning."

Eric was quiet and his fingers stopped tinkering with the flowers. "What a human way to look at death… And irrationally optimistic."

"Call it what you want, Eric, but it's the truth. You're just too afraid to admit it 'cause you don't have no end," I began outside again and I felt his stoic presence behind me still. However much he critiques my credences, he seemed plenty interested.

"So what should I do, meet the sun? Seems like a waste," he said sarcastically, a smirk biting the corner of his lips.

I rolled my eyes, taking careful steps along the ridge of the garden, studying its treasures and absentmindedly responding to his quip. "Make a greater story of your life so you walk the world knowing you lived for something. If you're going to live so long, at least you should be happy."

An expected sarcastic remark or indifferent response failed to arrive. There was a moment of silence as my eyes scanned the garden. I suddenly took careful steps in, placing my toes only on patches of dirt between beds of flowers.

"Happiness is for humans."

I bent down, cutting away a handful of stems.

"Maybe it is, but I sure as Hell wouldn't want to be a thousand years old and look back on my life and seeing nothin' but tedium I'd want'a see something big and beautiful and twisting and turning like a big, old river… Like the Nile or… Just something big and pretty and messy."

I made my way out of the gardens with my hands full of small, bell-shaped flowers as white as the moon that hung above me. It illuminated the violet circles around Eric's eyes and the red tint benath his lower lid. Despite the cadaverous colors of his face, his beauty was inexorable.

I held out my hands and took his—a bold move, perhaps, but he made no violent or uncomfortable response. His hands were as cold and heavy as marble in my own. The light painted shadows along his pronounced knuckles that danced back to his wrist. I placed the flowers in his hands.

"Lily of the valley," I smiled minutely, releasing his hands. He looked down at me with an unreadable expression. It was suddenly so odd looking at him—such a tall, brooding man with a handful of delicate white flowers.

"What do they mean?"

"Return of happiness."

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but I couldn't bother myself to listen. "Sookie's at Bill's—if you were lookin' for her."

I made my way back into the house and put the scissors back in their designated drawer. As I leant against the counter, tired but inexplicably wide awake, I looked around the kitchen for something to waste my early morning hours on. Eric was gone, as he was no longer to be seen in the garden and had presumably gone to Bill's, and the closet door to the cleaning supplies was ajar. I didn't know how or why—because, frankly, no one had bothered with such tasks since Gran died—the door was open, but the black oblivion between the door and its frame called my name.

When I pulled open the door and saw the old mop leant against one side of the closet and the empty bucket full of sponges, I bent down and took both items in my hands before immediately dropping them.

I could smell the blood, hear Sookie swiping and scraping her sponge across the stained-vermillion floor, see the smudges of blood on Sookie's garments on mine. The senses sent me crumbling to the floor, pulling my hair in an attempt to rip the sight and sound and scent from my skull. It would not leave.

"Georgina!" Gran called, her voice was primordial and as sweet as honey in my ears. It was like the sun calling the earth home. I pushed myself up on wobbling knees. The scent of blood died in the air and instead I felt the heat of Gran's freshly-baked pecan pie and the scent of honeysuckle she carried in from the backyard.

"Gran?" I asked the stagnant air. There was no response, as no Gran was to be seen before me. "Gran?!" I exclaimed, pushing myself up further with the edge of the counter and took quick steps towards the foyer. The farther from the kitchen my feet took me, the quicker the comforting scent of pecan pie sailed away. By the time I pulled open the front door and looked outside around desperately, searching for her, the scent was gone—lost in the breeze that combed through the weeping willow on the front lawn.

I sat down again, heart sunk, against the doorframe; I held the door open and admitted the wind into the house. As I gathered the dripping sorrow of my heart with trembling hands, I stood and grabbed my car keys from the small table beside the door on which they rested. Still barefoot and in only my nightdress, I walked out to my old, rusted Pontiac. I imagined a drive would perhaps settle my mind.

As I sat down swiftly, I immediately heard the telltale sighing and gasping of a couple in heat. I smelled Jason's shampoo and the unfamiliar scent of cheap, flowery perfume.

"For Christ's sake!" I cried, slamming my palms down on the steering wheel and accidentally honking the car. A nearly saw a flicker in the stars and I sighed, looking up culpably. "Forgive me Lord."

I rolled down the windows and aired out the car of the postcoital scents and cursed Jason in my head—whyin _my_ car?! Turning on the engine, I cranked up the fan and began to make my way down the dirt path to the road. The tires screeched with the sharp turn of my steeling wheel onto the serene street.

I drove the car along down the sound and straight streets of Bon Temps, heading nowhere. Dawn had yet to rise and the people of town were still tucked tightly in bed. The last gasps of night whistled through the trees and tall grasses; they carried me along until I found the sand outside the pond near Merlotte's crunching beneath my tires. I turned off my car and walked across the powdery dirt that faded into wide planks of wood that made up a dock. Smudges of tawny dirt rode up my bare feet.

When I reached the end of the dock, I lifted my nightgown over my head and dropped it onto ground. It slithered down my body like a ghost; naked and standing on a public dock in the early, early hours of the morning, I slid into the water as swiftly as a fragile drop of rain. The water enveloped around me and I could feel the nude bodies of two lovers around me. When my eyes resurfaced and blinked open there was no one there, and no long legs swam around me in the mossy-green water like the facets of a diamond ignited with light. I was alone, and yet a man and a woman swam and smiled—but something was between them that flickered anxiously like a light bulb about to die.

I shook my head and dunked once more, buoying with a sigh.

When the sky ripened closer to lavender, I climbed out of the water and back onto the dock. With my hip to my car, I patted my dripping hair with my nightgown before sliding it back over my shoulders. The sound of a car engine loudened and I smoothed the skirt of my lightweight dress, making sure it was not caught up around my waist. The running engine slowed momentarily before speeding up again. As I walked towards my car bashfully, the flash of a red taillight and the shiver of a long, black Cadillac crept away.

Warily combing back soaking, stray strands of hair, I turned on the engine and pulled out of the dirt parking lot in front of the pond and made my way home.


	2. Madonna of the Wasps

**Hello everyone! I'd like to thank those five who reviewed the first chapter of _The Great Day That Dawns_ , it means more to me than you think! That being said, I would very much appreciate anyone's-if not _everyone's_ reviews! Good or bad, constructive or commentary...I want them all! There's nothing I enjoy more than everyone's reception to my writing, it encourages me to continue doing so!**

 **In response to those who commented, your main concerns seemed to concern Georgina being the "shadow" of Sookie, or something of that nature, and I can see exactly where you're coming from. In fact, that was a concern of mine that I faced while planning this story! One of my main goals is to build Georgina as her own person, but that doesn't mean she won't falter and face the challenges in becoming so. As you may have noticed in Chapter One and you will definitely notice in this chapter, Georgina is going to face the challenge of becoming her own person or becoming someone's shadow-and not just Sookie's shadow, anyone's! Georgina is a _dynamic_ character, which means she is going to change. An important aspect of creating realistic characters is giving them real-life weakness, and I know for sure that people have trouble with not being able to establish themselves as their own person-me being one of those people!**

 **Sorry to go on such a terribly long tangent, but I want respond to everyone's questions and concerns! So far, I've been incredibly pleased with the feedback and quantity of so for this story, so keep it coming! Enjoy!**

Tara looked at me with dark eyes like the soil and lips fluttering like the tremulous branches of trees in a thunderstorm. She must have known, if not she'd been curled up in my arms by now.

My stomach swirled like boiling soup and I wanted to escape the looming scent of gunfire more than anything I'd ever wanted. No one seemed to smell it liked I did, but for some reason the particles of gun powder had caught in my nostrils and no one else's.

As Arlene gushed about her pride in the local police force to Andy Bellefleur, I tore my waist apron off and jogged outside.

"Georgina!" I heard Sam yell from behind me. I knotted my fingernails in the humid, peachy frizz of my hair and looked behind me. I saw the heart, beating in his dark hands. I ran.

In high school I ran track, and I was still proud of the pace my legs could carry me at. The air cleared of the stagnant sound of Andy's gunshot the further I ran away from Merlotte's, so I kept on running until the street in front of me turned in unfamiliar ways. Perhaps I could recognize my place in Bon Temps if my head was somewhere else, but at that moment it was locked in one place—one image. emEggs carried the dripping heart of Daphne in his hand as it pumped a final spurt of blood; his eyes looked like the excess pool of black ink fountain pens coughed up when shaken. He was smiling.

I ran faster, letting instinct drive. Eventually I wound up home, and with hacking, sticky breaths I threw myself up the stairs of the front porch and through the open screen door.

"Sook!" I shouted, hearing my panting voice sound throughout the house to no response.

My own body seemed to control my ascension up the stairs to the bathroom and into the shower. I went in with neat mascara-done eyes and came out with charcoal smears down my freckled cheeks. My phone began to sing its robotic marimba tone; I ignored it until it began ringing again and I couldn't ignore the urgency in its xylophonic hiccups.

"Hello?"

"It's me, Gee. He's gone," Sookie's voice pled unusually over the speaker.

"Huh?"

"Bill and I were out to dinner and he proposed and I went to the bathroom to gather my stupid head and then when I returned I couldn't find 'im."

I forced a sigh down my throat at the sound of his proposal. Some antediluvian voice I kept bundled in layers far from my mouth told me he was nothing but bad news for her. It warned me of the inescapable possession he had on her heart and it told me to be bugged Bill's unpreventable consumption of her soul. She was silly when she was with him—foolish. Her head ran away from her and her heart made the big decisions.

"You think he got cold feet?" I asked and she scoffed.

 _As if it's so unimaginable that a man get cold feet on her._

I knew they loved each other, but there was something off. It wasn't always this way, it all started when I'd first had dinner with them a long time ago—or at least it felt as so. Well, _Sookie_ had dinner. Bill just sat there and smiled and called me "Miss Stackhouse", and occasionally the blue seas of his eyes swam with hungry and uncanny creatures. I cleaned the dishes with him and his arm was pushed against mine in some bubbly, soaking, awkward wash of a dish and I'd seen some redheaded lady with two excessively-protruding fangs and finger curls. She handed a file to me in the reflection—to Bill, but his eyes were still trained on the sloshing water in the sink beneath him. In front of me, on the paper, I saw a family tree—circled at the bottom was the labeled box of Sookie Stackhouse.

 _"Georgina?" Bill asked, and I heard it in the farthest plane of my hearing, but it wasn't enough to tear me from what I saw before me._

 _"Georgina?" He asked again. I looked down at the papers the sharpened-fingernail hand held in front of me through the dusty window and running water of the faucet, but the papers stayed perfectly intact and unimpaired._

 _The red river of a fine-point pen wrapped around Sookie's pink box. Jason's blue box was next to hers and her parents above, but there weren't any more circles. And upon looking closer, "G. Stackhouse" was written beneath Jason and Sookie's boxes with a messy question mark next to it._

 _"Are you okay, Georgina?"_

 _I blinked like my eyes had never known water and the queenly vampire before me dissolved into the air like cotton candy on my tongue._

 _"Oh," I stuttered, shaking my head. "Darn, Bill, I sure am sorry. I get caught up in my own head a whole lot, you've got to forgive me. I ain't been gettin' a lot of sleep lately with work and I just don't got lots of time to think nowadays… so I just fall out of it like that for a little sometimes. I'm real sorry if I scared you there," I laughed girlishly, forcing a cheeky country blush into my paled cheeks._

 _Bill laughed heartily, but there was an unusual silver layer of doubt beneath it, as thin as gossamer and as undetectable as a spider web in a forest. "Well it's okay Georgina, we all get like that sometimes," he said. "Oh, sorry, is 'Georgina' okay?"_

 _"Of course, sugar!" I laughed, perhaps pushing it too far._

 _"Maybe you should ask for new hours?" Bill suggested._

 _"I would but Sam's got so much stress lately, I wouldn't want'a cause too much trouble. But, I'm doin' fine. I appreciate your concern," I smiled, looking back to the dishes and feeling my heart high in my throat._

Too suspicious. To this day, I hadn't learned any more of the redheaded vampire.

"Want me to come meet you? Where are you?" I asked.

* * *

The first thing Sookie did after she flung her quivering arms around me was force her way back into my car and insist we go to Fangtasia. She swore Bill's disappearance was by Eric's design and that she was "gonna roast him in the sun 'til he begged for mercy".

Sookie's inexorable contempt for Eric got on my nerves more often than not. Eric's ego was as big as a hot air balloon and he was as sneakily manipulative as a snake, but she didn't seem to look at these characteristics objectively. Eric was over a millennium old; he'd lived through everything we learned about in history class like it was nothing and he had to keep all those expired years to himself. Of course he was haughty—what was our finite knowledge to his imponderable wisdom? And yet Sookie treated his arrogance like that of a high school quarterback who was too good-looking for his own good. I never tried to breach Eric's sagacity like Sookie, I merely shared with him the small quantity of life experience I discovered myself or that which had been handed down to me from Gran or gained from observation of others' mistakes.

And she had the audacity to critique his insensitivity? Eric spent hundreds of years alone, watching human lives fade and bloom again around him like annual flowers. He was the perennial sage of the universal gardens. She compared Bill's "goodness" to Eric's, as though they were comparable. Bill was still raking his losses into organized crop lines after a hundred years—trying to make himself feel okay again, but Eric's fields were arid after so many years of his trying. Little did Eric know I had a glut of sympathy for him, whereas Sookie was too busy comparing Bill's façade to Eric's raw and unconcealed person to see the tragic beauty of Eric.

Still Eric was fascinated by Sookie's mystical abilities; while little did he know, whenever his cold skin brushed against mine the North Sea sang its pitiful anthem in my ears and filled my nose with its primordial salt. He was so cold and yet I felt fire in me that hailed from the wan abysm of the sea whenever he neared.

Sookie drove. Her chattering waxed beside me about the situation until her eyes began to tear and she clamped shut her mouth, insisting the topic was too sensitive to dwell on and that she preferred silence to her own woeful blathering.

I read one of Gran's old books on the art of Botticelli as we drove to Shreveport. I could feel her pruned fingers on the scratchy pages and the warm heat of interest rising in her chest.

When we pulled up in front of Fangtasia, there was a long and dark-colored line streaming out of the bar's front doors. Sookie and I both received several irate, passing confrontations from those who waited in the line while we ran passed it—with Sookie dressed in a feminine lavender dress and myself still in my Merlotte's uniform, which I'd put back on after showering for a reason unknown to me. When we reached the front door of quilted leather and with vermillion lights shining through the opening, we ran into Pam. She wore her hair braided back tightly and an intricate dress composed of small metal rings and midnight blue satin. Hovering at least three inches above my own rather tall height, she looked like a Gothic Amazonian dominatrix, and she was still beautiful as always.

"Never seen blue-collar on you, Georgina. I like," she smiled, the plump curve of her bottom lip lighting up against the light. I looked down at the small pair of shorts Sam had me wear and the skin-tight white top I had—through which one could see the lace trim of my bra. I didn't approve of the uniform, but it wasn't my place to say anything.

"Where's Bill?" Sookie asked loudly, bringing Pam's attention to her.

"No idea," Pam answered monotonously.

"Then where's Eric?" Sookie continued.

"He's a bit _indisposed_ at the moment," Pam smiled esoterically, knowing something naughty that we did not.

"Indisposed doing what?" Sookie asked, pushing through the bar's lithe bodyguard. Pam merely sighed and rolled her eyes, following behind slowly. I nervously scanned the flowing crowds of mavericks. Their frenetic energies merged together into one tempestuous storm that swallowed me up with a big gulp. I suddenly felt vulnerable; the thousands of things to sense that surrounded me gave me nothing to focus on. The only thing I could feel was the heat of various colored lights against my skin and the thumping floor beneath my feet. Pam took us to a small metal door in the wall and opened it like a hotel staff leading us to our designated rooms. I peered over Sookie's shoulder and saw an unwelcoming staircase that faded into obsidian depths—those of which were only softly brought to life by cautious fluorescent lighting.

"Don't worry Gee, this isn't my first time descending into Eric's _dungeon,_ " she sighed and began making her way down the stairs with myself and Pam closely behind.

I heard grunting and the warbling shaking of shackles as I proceeded further down the stairs, and I saw the sounds' source when I made it to the landing where the staircase turned to the left and emptied into the basement's floor. Immediately, as the pathetic and virginal girl I was, I waited until Pam passed me by and pressed myself against the darkness of the wall so Eric would hopefully not see me. Despite my previous mentions of a physical draw to Eric, that didn't dismiss the overarching nervousness that vibrated within my every breath while in the presence of a man my eyes enjoyed.

"Sookie, stop. No. Come back," Pam called after Sookie pathetically, clearly not putting a lot of effort into reigning her in.

"Holy S," Sookie breathed, watching Eric disappear into a cloud of movement against a sighing, sweaty woman whose limbs were spread and stretched through the use of chains.

Eric immediately stopped at the sound of her comment. "Why hello," he didn't turn around but the lopsided smirk on his face was all too present. "See anything you like?"

"I do," Pam answered dutifully, her voice as long and soft and heavy as silk.

"I take it Sookie couldn't be stopped?" Eric asked, turning around and revealing himself to all three of us. I averted my eyes and focused on the broad expanse of gloomy cement walls that drove far back to corners that couldn't be seen in the darkness. "Georgina is a little more polite, I don't imagine she'd force her way into rooms she didn't have permission to access."

"What can I say? Sookie overpowered me," Pam said, sighing.

"Off you go, Pam," Eric ordered casually, as a father does his daughter.

"This," Sookie began. "Is between Eric and I," she said, giving a side-eyed glance towards me.

I scoffed. She was too much sometimes; according to Sookie, I was at her beck and call. Shamefully, however, and without a fight, I turned towards the exit of the basement with the assistance of Pam's manicured claw beneath my collar that dragged me up the stairs.

"Feeling excluded?" Pam feigned a sympathetic frown after she slammed shut the door behind me.

I shrugged as if it didn't matter to me and looked at the dirty floor, feeling my eyes trying to focus on something besides the smug look on Pam's face.

"Come on, sweetums," she sighed, taking me by the elbow and leading me into the office at the back of her and Eric's bar. On the sides of the room were daunting stacks of liquors and blood—Tito's Vodka side-by-side with True Blood. There was a desk in the center of the room with a swirling office chair behind it; Pam sat in it and looked at me with hard eyes, she gestured with a lackadaisical finger that I sit down in the chair across from her on the other side of the desk.

"Now, I'm just at a complete loss," she hummed. "Why is everyone so smitten with Sookie when you're standing right beside her?"

"Huh?"

She inhaled longingly through her straight nose, her eyes fluttering shut. When they opened, the swirling pools of her stinging eyes dotted with the lights of fireflies. "And you smell _just_ as good."

"Isn't Sookie special?" I asked, feigning diffidence—or perhaps merely enhancing it to an excessive level.

Pam groaned—the lights in her eyes going out. "Apparently. But if you ask me, she's just a snobby little scourge who can't keep her mystical snatch out of the sights of men for more than a minute. And really—congratulations, she can read minds, but we only know that because she doesn't shut her trap about it. I mean, who knows what everyone else has up their sleeves?" She rambled angrily until her teeth bit down hards on the final consonants of her last sentence. "Like…you."

"Me?" I blinked, hard. One of my hands accidentally slipped to the base of the chair so my hand was pressed against the clammy leather.

"Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men; preserve me from violent men, who plan evil things in their heart and stir up wars continually. They make their tongue sharp as a serpent's—" my ears begin to ring with an unfamiliar voice. The voice of someone else who was not here in the room but was once.

"That doesn't work here," Pam said plainly, but the mouth of the Pam before me did not move; it echoes in a dimension I could not see.

"And under their lips is the venom of asps. Guard me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from violent men," the unknown voice still carried.

"Come on Pam, there's nothing more amusing than the last-minute bind humankind makes to their silly God out of sheer and unworthy desperation. Watch," Eric's voice commanded lightheartedly, and yet he was not in the room.

"Georgina?" Pam asked, her mouth moving this time. This existed in the now.

"—who have planned to trip up my feet. The arrogant have hidden a trap for me—"

"Yes?" My voice was weak and my eyes were shallow, as if they'd rather see into another dimension than the one I sat on.

"and with cords they have spread a net; beside the way they have set snares for me. Amen."

"What's going on?" Pam asked, standing.

I sat in silence, waiting to see if the voices would leave my head as I pulled my hand from the sticky cushion of the chair. I breathed and waited. Nothing.

"Sorry, I just felt sick there for a moment," I smiled, letting the tan freckles of my crinkle on the thin bridge of my nose and the crookedness of my bottom teeth show.

She walked steadily, her face contorting with an interest I so rarely saw in her—especially those of which dealing with humankind. The click and clunk of her heels against the ground were like the last few seconds of a timer sounding. Her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed.

"I really am fine, Pam," I reassured, and her steps slowed.

"Come here," she immediately followed the end of my statement, turning on her shoes and dragging me up from the chair with a harsh tug of my wrist.

Her hand pushed open the soft insides of a woman's thighs—perhaps the woman from downstairs, with whom Eric was so busy. I clenched shut my eyes with expected naiveté as Pam's glittering mouth kissed up the skin and met the pink blossom between the two splitting tree branches.

Pam pointed to what she wanted to show me and the lovers' rendezvous disappeared before my eyes.

"These flowers, the ones you gave Eric, he kept them," she said, bringing both of our attentions to the small, glass vase in which a bundle of lily of the valley slept. The immaculacy of their whiteness was tainted by age as the drooped into an eggshell yellow.

"And?" I asked, looking back up to her.

"I've never seen Eric value something so…temporary," she tried to explain, but her voice cluttered and bruised like it was falling down flights of stairs. She couldn't explain it; for once, she couldn't understand.

I kept a smile concealed and let it beam its sunshine onto my tongue and throat. There was something precious about seeing a hundred year-old woman have trouble comprehending something a twenty-two year-old had introduced without thought.

"Maybe he thought they were pretty," I suggested carelessly, knowing that was not the true reason for Eric's affections for the flower. I wasn't sure of them, in fact, but I could imagine it had something to do with the miraculous appreciation I accidentally enlightened him with.

"You're not stupid, Georgina. Don't act like you are."

"Well, what do you want me to tell you?"

Pam's disposition shifted from bewilderment to ferocity. She moved at exquisite speed as she trapped me against the desk, pushing my torso backwards and the lids of my eyes wide open. Her face was so close I could notice the fact that her mouth didn't open and close slightly like that of a living, breathing human. So suddenly—at the snap of a finger—Pam was as dead as a doornail.

One of her slender hands trapped my neck and the other clenched the angular underside of my jaw so hard I could feel myself bruising.

"What did you say to him?" She forced, her voice sounding slightly ragged.

"Nothing!" I coughed. "Is this really all over a damned flower?!"

Her grip loosened but the white knives hiding in her gums descended with a devastating click. "You know I like you more than I like Sookie, but that doesn't mean I like you more than I like Eric," she took her hand from my neck and looked down at me. "And I know that flowers may seem like nothing to you, but this is weakness. And in time's like these, we can't have a powerful man like Eric stepping over flowers for pretty girls he wants to fuck," she said through her teeth, ripping the flowers out of the vase on Eric's desk. She held them between our faces and with a horrendous grip, forcing the remaining water in the flowers' stems to seek solace through the cut-up ends of the stems.

 _The return of happiness dies._

I suddenly felt vulnerable—as helpless as the flowers that slowly slipped away from any chance of life. The least they deserved was a peaceful death; Eric deserved happiness, but if anyone prevented him from achieving it, the dream should at least slip away slowly and peacefully. I didn't want to watch the flowers die before me, I wanted them to live on forever as Eric deserved eternal happiness. I gave the flowers to him to grant him happiness once again, and yet it slipped out my grasp and into Pam's.

The bulbous ends of the dainty flowers began to swell and ripen once again; they turned to pellets of snow at the ends of verdant vines of crocodile green. Pam's perched and perfected eyebrows lowered in mysticism; her eyes trained on the flowers as life flowed back into them. Her grip loosened and her mouth unlatched, slipping ajar. I opened my palms to the flowers as they slipped from her hand and I let them lay in mine.

The door opened loudly and Eric entered, wearing pants and a striped button-up shirt that he found somewhere between the basement and his office. He looked at us both, his eyes flying from Pam to me, and his eyebrows furrowed at the bright flowers in my hands and the confounded look on Pam's face.

"Hello again," he said. Sookie sneaked in behind him in her silly purple dress and looked at me expectantly, as if I were to give her something and I was already late on it.

Pam shook her head, shaking away the loss of explanation, and she looked at me hard. I didn't know what to say or do, all I knew was that a bundle of flowers meant for Eric were planted in my hands and they needed to be returned to their vase. I scurried away from Pam and slid the flowers back into their rightful place.

"Georgina," Eric said. "What are you doing with the flowers? Did you bring me more?" He asked, seeing the revived flowers as a new batch rather than what they really were.

"Oh, yes, I did," I said quietly. "Well, Sookie and I have to go now."

"Would you not care for a drink? Hand me back some of the ten grand I owe you?" Eric asked, looking at me. I looked to Sookie for an answer, as I always do, and she huffed.

"We're going. Eric, do what you said you would. Find him," Sookie urged.

As I made my way out of the room, I touched my fingertips to Pam's hand that pressed against the table—gripped it as though it were her final semblance of sanity.

 _There were tens of hundreds tied up against tree trunks, crucifixes, tall erections of splintered wood. Their skin glittered against the light of the afternoon like a pearl beneath the light, but the constant wailing suggested such a thing was not as beautiful as it looked. Opalescent water streamed from their lurid, sea-colored eyes and their bright hair of red and gold and penny brown faded into the grays of garments washed too many times. From the blood and tears streaming from their bodies that was not bucketed sprang flowers of mournful marigold to wistful wisteria. They were the fountain of youth._

I do not know from where I uncovered this vision nor how I translated it to the mind of Pam, but as Sookie dragged me away from Eric's office, Pam looked as though she would never again speak of what she saw.


	3. Yesterday's Wine

**Thanks for the reviews, favorites, and follows everyone! The last chapter was pretty devoid of Eric/Georgina interaction, so to make up for that... I gave you this! Enjoy!**

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I spent the pressing hours of the night with my eyes wide and my legs curled up to my chest. It had been two nights since the hundreds of draining creatures had appeared in my head and flung themselves into Pam's, and I couldn't wash any of it from my brain. It was like the artist that lived in the dark crevices of my skull kept painting the same picture over and over again.

They cried, they wailed, they sang for the sea and the sea sang for them.

Bundles of tied flowers sat before me on the coffee table, some pressed and some fresh. The living room smelled like a flower shop delivery truck heading for a wedding—gardenias, begonias, carnations, rhododendrons, hydrangeas, lantana, black-eyed susans, camellias, crested irises, roses, aster, catchfly…

The tips of my fingers were detailed with pink scratches and scarlet scrapes from the rusty garden scissors which badly needed replacement. Long tails of silk ribbons hopped and cavorted across the floor and wrapped themselves around the stems of flowers. The past two mornings Sookie had cautiously descended down the stairs and looked at the terrible mess I'd made with a frown and nothing to say.

The previous night, after I had spent hours listening to Jessi Colter and dusting every inch of the house, Sookie sat me down and explained to me where she'd been the few hours prior to her silly stomping through the front door at ten o'clock, as she expected I may have been worried for her whereabouts—though truthfully, in those hours, I hadn't even realized she was gone. More so, she'd sat me down and vociferated to me the irritation Eric had planted in her head that night.

 _"'Werewolves. Stay away. They're territorial, vicious, pathologically secretive—nothing like me. And you know what you are? Werewolf bait. So stay away. You'll wreck everything, does your little human mind understand this? Even though I say all this, you're so valuable to me and I want you'," Sookie mimicked dramatically, keeping her voice low, flat, and domineering. I rolled my eyes and giggled, forcing the laughter to my lips so she thought not one small part of me was wounded by what Eric had said to her. I supposed he loved Sookie for all her many redeeming qualities and the sugar that ran in her baby pink blood._

 _"He's so condescending it makes me madder than a hatter, Gee," Sookie squealed. She retrieved a pitcher of iced tea and refilled my glass, filling a cup of her own as well._

 _"Maybe he's just lookin' out for you?" I suggested, but she responded to the question with an elaborated roll of her dark eyes._

 _"Well, I never asked. I don't care if I get myself in trouble and neither should he. I am Bill's and I'll do just 'bout anything to keep it that way."_

I always hated it when she referred to herself as Bill's—even though in the vernacular of vampires it sounded much less authoritative than it did in that of humans. Initially she rejected the possessive terminology, but now she used it on the go. She was Bill's; but, I didn't think I ever heard anyone saying Bill was Sookie's. Funny how that worked out.

It was two in the morning when the front door cried with a few gentle knocks. With a half-glass full of Grandpa Earl's aged brandy in hand, I stood up without much grace and schlepped towards the front door, as if Gran's ancient crystal was as heavy as steel.

Through the lace curtain was a tall figure with broad shoulders and dark garments dressing his hard chest. I peaked through the flimsy curtain like a little piglet hesitant to allow the Big Bad Wolf inside. I saw Eric through the pane of glass; normally I would have blushed and opened the door without making eye contact, but the old liquor had done some odd miracle to my poise.

I reached for the rickety, brass doorknob and turned it, opening the front door with a steadiness so atypical of me.

"Pretty darn late for a visit from you, Eric," I said boldly, pushing my glass onto the table beside the front door.

"Where's Sookie?" He asked. I looked at the ground, oddly feeling my heart gain a few pounds in my ribcage. What other reason would he come besides one concerning Sookie?

"Sleepin'."

"Well… that's good."

"Why's that?"

"It's not really—"

"Oh, you're worried about the werewolf this mornin'? Sookie told me 'bout it. She's all safe 'n sound, he didn't do nothin' to her—just ran away like a little girl," I sighed. He looked at me warily, wondering how I was handling the knowledge that supernatural creatures besides vampires existed. "I'm more informed than you'd guess."

"If you're so informed, do you think you could pass on information to her for me?"

"'Course," I nodded. He looked at me expectantly, not saying anything but stabbing his blue eyes deep into me my abdomen and making the hot contents within my veins and arteries bubble with an even more intense heat than that which my brain monitored.

"May I come in?" He asked.

"Don't you already have an invitation?" I asked, my brow knotting together further.

"Something about you tells me I should observe some degree of courtesy. May I come in?"

I blinked, my mouth opening slightly like that of a whale taking in armies of plankton. I nodded. "Sure."

He stepped inside, observing the peeling walls of the foyer in the fresh and dark light of these first and unadulterated hours of the day during which I so liked to study the color of the moonbeams on Gran's garden. I walked into the family room, nervously pushing my hair behind my ears. I focused on the burning the liquor did to my heart and stabilized my confidence. It was no time for sheepishness.

"Interesting," he commented on the piles of flowers, petals, leaves, and ribbons across the floor, sofa, and coffee table. "Project you're working on?"

"What is it you want me to tell Sookie?" I asked, ignoring his jest.

"That I lied to her. I said I had little knowledge of werewolves, but I actually have a substantial amount… My late maker, Godric, and I spent many decades hunting them down, particularly in the second world war. Him and I joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party and posed as members of the Nazi Schutzstaffel in order to infiltrate an operation organized by the Nazi Party which was organized to operate behind the enemy lines of the Allies, called Operation Werwolf.

Members of the organization were branded by the Wolfsangel symbol, which is a Nordic rune that was intended to ward off or capture wolves. Him and I captured a werewolf in Ausburg in 1945, whom I let drink my blood in return for the knowledge of her master. She revealed little, except for the fact that her master was a vampire."

Eric paused before meeting my eyes through clouded corneas, saddened by something that I was unsure of—I figured it was the mention of his late maker.

"I'm sorry 'bout your maker. I wish I could've met him; Sookie told me you lost him in Dallas."

I thought about touching my hand to his—perhaps to catch a glimpse of Godric at some point in his life, as it most likely was caught on his mind at that moment. But I had no way of controlling or predicting what I was going to sense or whether it would be done by means of sight, scent, sound, or whatever else. Not only that, but it was best Eric know the least about me and my idiosyncrasies as possible.

"Thank you, Georgina," he said calmly with a teaspoon of surprise. Perhaps he wasn't used to people putting sentimentality before mission. If that were true, I pitied him and I hoped that that was what inspired him to mind courtesy with me.

"You and Godric were in the SS?" I returned to the topic he had handed me and put me in charge of as the messenger.

"We posed as whatever would help us most," he answered.

"And you were hunting the Nazi werewolves?"

"Yes. But, this pack dates back far further than the Nazi Party."

"So they're not Nazis."

"No, and it's important that you mention _that_ to Sookie. These werewolves are not ordinary; they're organized, highly trained, well-funded, and fueled by vampire blood. Not to mention, they've been working under these conditions for much longer than you'd think."

"Why didn't you just mention this last night when you saw her? It's bad enough she'll probably go off on her own and try an' hunt this wolves down with just a shotgun."

Eric sighed, looking out the window carefully, as though he saw a pair of watching eyes between the branches of the trees or could hear the crack of a twig caught underfoot. He looked back to me hesitantly and I could see the gears turning behind the blue fountains of his eyes. "Well… I don't—I'm not supposed to reveal any of this, and why I am risking this is partly unknown to me but… I owe Sookie."

"Right," I nodded. "Sookie."

I stood up and walked to the kitchen, picking up the glass of brandy I had left beside the door on the way. I didn't feel or hear Eric behind me, but the shadow of a presence leaked into my farthest plane of sensorial knowledge and I suddenly felt my body slide onto the edge of unsettlement. While in the kitchen, I quietly grabbed a glittering kitchen knife and held it behind the base of my spine. The brandy that still boiled in my stomach made me worry for my marksmanship with the hazardous blade, but the firmness of the fear in my heart ended the trembling in my hands.

The rug I stood on buzzed with silent electricity beneath the soles of my feet and I could feel its grain pushing me in one direction, as though the small pieces of fabric were bent in the exact route I was intended to follow.

With my footsteps quieter than the slither of a garden snake through Gran's tangled flower beds, I began to see the shape of a thick-coated creature taking tentative steps from the window sill in the dining room onto the floor. Its long rows of sharp teeth glittered like ivory and were painted with long strokes of red, from tip to gum. Its canary yellow eyes trained on me and its snout released the long and bitter hum of an enemy's growl.

In such a moment of peril, I could feel the entire ground in my body. From Sookie's slippered feet meeting the floorboards in her bedroom a level up to Eric's rushed and blurring footsteps heading towards the dining room. I suddenly had tunnel vision—my target being the life of this house. I could feel its fear and consternation; I wanted it to feel safe. I would do anything to keep it safe. Every small string of muscle in my body twisted and hardened into twine and twinkled electric blue with a static and acidic drone.

As Eric appeared at the opposite entrance of the dining room, the wolf launched at me. And yet all the energy the house could give me—from that in the old ash scattered across the chimney crown to that in the buried skeletons of the Stackhouse elders and pets who were buried deep beneath the ground the house rested on. I was strong, powerful, and I moved with the life force of many instead of one.

The wolf was beneath me on the old ornate rug and I pressed the edge of my kitchen knife into its scraggly, furry neck. The whimper of a puppy sounded before the body below me transformed into that of a human man.

"Georgina!" Eric exclaimed, pushing me away slightly and taking the reigns to which I gripped with a dying mystical power. He clamped his hands around the man's throat and pushed him harder into the ground. "He knows."

"Knows what?" I asked. The light died from my body and slipped back into the old and weathered threads of the rug like the dye that slowly faded from them and into time.

"Who do you work for?" Eric insisted. The dark veins of his arms were like thick, scarlet lines sewn onto his long and pale forearms. I can't remember ever seeing him so livid than he was at that very moment.

"Give me a taste, fucker!" The man snarled through his dirty and crooked teeth.

"Who sent you!?" Eric roared lowly, his hand clenching tighter with an impossible grip.

"I—I can't talk," the man grunted as air struggled to escape his closed throat. His nostrils gasped for air with an unsteady snorting similar to that of a fat, old pig and his mouth raggedly gulped.

Eric hesitated before pulling back his hand, letting loose the man's reddened neck that was scarred with fleshy lesions and ingrown hairs and shaving nicks.

Unsurprisingly, the man scurried away with a bark before lunging on top of Eric. He dug his teeth deep into Eric's chest and ripped out flesh with a dripping mouthful. Eric cried as the grisly man slobbered maniacally and pulled away, smiling something terrible with a mouth dribbling blood. With his satisfactory gulp and the sense of his loss of temporary power, he tried to scamper away once more, but I sent my knife from my hand as fast and straight as a bullet leaves a gun and the sharp blade planted itself deep in the bare flesh of the man's leg. He hollered in agony and fell to the floor on his side. He attempted to curl himself into a infantile ball but Eric's tackle of his stocky body did not permit this.

"For the last time," Eric growled. " _Who_ is your master?"

"Think you can mad-dog me, you dead fucking fanger?"

I crouched and urged Eric to push away his grip. He was as hesitant as he could be in the moment but did as I suggested when I pressed the underside of my hands to the man's neck and scraggly cheek.

I saw the flickering fluorescent lights like heaven peaking through overcast clouds. Cyan and lime green—the name of a bar. It was all blurred, but I could make up the refection of the crescent moon in the window of the dining room and the cloud that crossed it like a crucifix. Cursive letters twirled beneath the crescent moon and cloud, but all I could make out through the smudges of electric colors was a capital "L". People in dark attire lined outside beneath the hanging sign and pushed one another around rambunctiously. It was a club; a bar.

"What you doin', damn fangbanger!?" The man before me exclaimed.

The brand burned on my own neck and I yelped squeamishly, rubbing my neck with my palm before pulling back the hair that hung over the man's shoulder, that of which was disgustingly slick with grease. There was a hideous scar composed of lines forming the same rune I felt on my neck.

"Who is your master!?" Eric shouted.

"If I tell, I'm as dead as you are," the man chuckled. His chortles rolled far away and his soul felt no longer present. When I brushed my hand against his cheek once more, there was nothing there to sense. "You might as well kill me now."

Eric looked at me as if to ask permission, but I made no expression to signal a semblance of approval or not. Eric growled territorially and peeled his lips back farther from his pronounced fangs. "As you wish."

Blood spilled across the old Stackhouse family rug once Eric dug his fangs into the internal carotid artery, ripping out flesh with his bite and swallowing the thick blood with predatory gulps. He drained the man dry faster than I would expect possible, but I had never seen a vampire truly feed on a person before. And when the blood ran in crimson rivulets down his throat and neck and his growling and snarling was as savage as that of the lion, king of all predators, while feeding on the fresh blood of a zebra of antelope, I was oddly enthralled. There was something transfixing about Eric feeding so savagely and being so deeply embedded in his true nature; something almost…kindling.

I didn't feel like possible prey at the moment—not in the way the werewolf was to Eric. I felt more than human and far above the man who lay dead across the dining room carpet with leftover blood sliding across the floor. I wasn't scared or angered by the mess he'd made, I was stirred and excited. I wanted to touch his skin and ignite the fuse that my mind made so mysteriously; I wanted to see him, but I was worried I'd be afraid for what I saw and I was worried I'd be afraid of him once he really knew about me.

"What did you do just then?" Eric asked me quietly, the blood still catching on his teeth and every word.

"Nothin'," I shrugged, speaking in a mumble. "Jus' wanted to see if he had that tattoo them Weres have, an' I was right. Speaking of, I was talkin' to somebody who knew somebody 'bout some Were bar relatively near."

"You have a computer?" He asked as his fangs snapped back into his gums absentmindedly.

"Sure."

Eric stood and looked as though he were ready to follow my every step like a puppy before he stopped himself and looked at the mess he'd made. "I'll clean that…and get you a new rug. Where's the computer?"

I walked out of the dining room and to the foyer, where we could ascend up the stairs. Sookie's bedroom door was closed in spite of my sensing that she was up and about earlier. But at that moment, I wasn't focused on Sookie so much; I was busy with the peculiarities I had faced myself in the past several minutes.

In my bedroom was my old laptop. It was odd having Eric in there with me, and suddenly more tense than I'd expected. My room was rather plain, with light lavender walls, a queen-size bed decorated with Gran's old pillows, and some other dressers and knickknacks I kept spread around the open space and flat surfaces. Wrapped around my bed like a necklace were stacks of books and maps and magazines—making my bedroom look like some unusual sort of cult gathering with me in my bed in the middle.

"Bookworm?" Eric asked casually and my cheeks went pink suddenly—the brandy had worn off since the jaunt with the werewolf.

"Sookie and Jason don't like readin' much, so all of Gran's books pretty much went to me," I shrugged. I made way for my desk where my laptop hid in one of its drawers, but Eric sunk onto my bed—disappearing in the plush comforter as I did every night.

"Cozy," Eric commented. "Much more so than my coffin."

I paused as I placed my laptop on my desk, taking a moment to look back at him through a few straight tufts of gilded strawberry hair. "What're those like?" I asked curiously

"Well, they're… They're not as comfortable as this bed," he tried to elaborate. He placed his head on the pillows and even yawned, despite it being the middle of the night. "I mean really, this is quite extraordinary. This is perhaps the most comfortable bed I've ever been on in my life, and I've been alive a thousand years."

I pursed my lips, not knowing how to respond. I looked back to my computer screen, it glowed Persian blue as it started up and illuminated my face, drawing out my features in forlorn, cold colors and distorting my face to that of one found at a funeral. I looked at myself in the glass and suddenly saw Eric standing behind me, looking down at the top of my head.

"Christ!" I exclaimed, looking up at him suddenly and shifting a few inches in my seat. He smiled as I muttered beneath my breath: "Forgive me, Lord."

"Religious?" He asked. I looked up to him critically, my eyes scrutinizing. "Don't you find the whole thing hypocritical?"

"How's that?"

"If God is good, how come he punishes so often?"

I smiled at him minutely, seeing the atheism of a weathered, old man. He had seen too many horrors to see the truth in God's work. "God does not punish. God forgives."

"Then how are people sent to Hell for their sins? Is that not an act of punishment?"

"To be forgiven by God, we must repent. He gives us the choice to when we have sinned—to repent or not to. Hell is locked from the inside, we ain't locked in there 'cause we don't have no choice. We repent, are forgiven by the Lord, and then ascend to heaven. God is merciful, but it is the choice of man to accept or deny his mercy."

Eric waited, looking out the window. "Do you love Him?"

"He is my hope and my light."

"If He is light and His creation, man—of whom He created in His image—is of light too, are vampires, the natural predators of humans, of darkness?"

"Of course not," I laughed. Eric's concern with the doom and gloom of his own kind was so saddening and relentless I wish I could shed God's own light onto him so he could truly know his goodness and light. "Nothing is of darkness, not even the Devil. Vampires are of God's creation and He loves them. He has given you His eternal life… He loves you. He has made you suffer with time, I can see it in your eyes, but He loves you and He is so happy you have faced these many years 'spite the toil that is carried with 'em."

Eric looked at me momentarily, waiting in the quiet darkness and stillness of the night. I could smell a cold sea on him. I did not know the last time he visited his rimy homeland but I could see it in his blue gaze and smell it in his nearness. "Christianity has never sounded so reassuring."

I looked back to my computer as it flashed, asking for my login code. I typed in my username and password to which Eric chuckled at the sight of my password, which referred to my late German Shepard named Bean.

His chin hovered above my shoulder and I could feel the coldness emanating from his pale skin. I did not dare look his way as he could see my eyes flicker in the refection on the window pane. My mind buzzed like a hive of bees as I tried to focus myself; I could hardly remember where on my computer I could find the internet. When I did, it loaded slowly—painfully so. The raggedness of my breath became bluntly noticeable as it croaked like sandpaper on wood. It was like the magic that kept his body working was expelling large clouds of smoke and they were suffocating me. I couldn't escape and, despite the lack of breath I was experiencing, I didn't want to escape.

"It was something short… with a crescent moon. That don't help us much, though," I muttered, trying to avert my attention and possibly his too.

"It's in Mississippi."

"How do you know?"

"Can't you humans differentiate between dialect? His accent was a Mississippian accent."

I rolled my eyes at his reversion to his typical stereotyping person, critiquing humans for their lack of knowledge—of which they only had a handful of years to gather as opposed to Eric's one thousand years. In my peripheral vision, I saw a small grin light his face at the sight of my irritated gesture.

"Let me type," he said, reaching for the keyboard and swiping off my small hands to replace them with his own enormous ones.

"You ain't even on a search engine, Eric," I sighed, trying to push back his hands.

"What? Yes I am."

"You don't even know what you're doin'," I argued.

"Yes I do. Let me do this," he insisted in a soft voice, almost like that of a child trying to get his mother to remove the cookie jar from the top shelf.

"Will you get away? You're typing onto a blank page!"

"What?"

"Oh my gosh," I exclaimed, pulling the laptop out from under him.

"I know what I'm doing, Georgina."

"No, you don't!" I walked over to the bed, but in the blink of an eye he was beside me, watching me type into an actual search box. I searched 'bars in Mississippi crescent moon' and Eric watched the page load. "Looks like there's somethin' you haven't mastered Eric: the internet. Pretty lame," I laughed.

" _Lame?"_ He laughed with happy and loud lungs. I noticed in the time I'd spent with him he rarely gave a hearty laugh to anything, just a low and breathy chuckle.

I scrolled through the results, finding little.

"Try Jackson, Mississippi."

"Why?"

"It's the capital."

"What're we goin' to do, go through every city?"

"Why are you so truculent?"

I huffed, typing in what he wanted. Instantly, in my head, the curving and fluorescent 'L' appeared and I typed in the letter at the end. "I think it started with that."

He hummed and swiped my hands away once again, scrolling through the results. He found a list of the up and coming bars in Mississippi in an online magazine article and slowly scrolled through them. He went especially slowly past those starting with an 'L' and looked at me expectantly every time. I bit my lip and shook my head, turning each down. None of them were right.

"Wait," I said and he stopped. I pushed him off of the keyboard again and pulled up my online dictionary. Breaking off the word 'wolf', I went from synonym to synonym until I found the word: lupine. "That's it!"

"Lupine?"

"No! Lou Pine's," I smiled, typing it into the search box and the bar's website came up, adorned with that lovely crescent moon with a cloud crossing through it.

"Ah, here we are," Eric said. "Lou Pine's in Jackson, Mississippi. Twenty-two McCain Avenue. I'm impressed Georgina."

I turned my head and looked at him, grinning. "Well, thanks," I sighed.

He froze like ice beside me; the cold burn between us reigniting and making me self-conscious over the intimacy of our position and previous conversation. In half of a second he slammed shut the laptop and overpowered me, locking both his hands onto my shoulders and baring his ivory white fangs at me.

"How do you do that?" He spoke lowly, holding me down with a painful strain. However, I didn't grimace or struggle, I only looked up at him with worried eyes. He couldn't know what I could do.

"Do what?" I asked beneath my breath. His touch on my shoulders engendered the sight of his homeland in my head. I saw the jarring, salty waves comb the pebbly sand on the cold, northern beaches of the bygone Norwegian shores. The room darkened above his outlined figure above me and the thatched roof of a wide longhouse sheltered me from the cacophonous winds only a man as well-built and sturdy as Eric could face with bared teeth and a free and wild heart.

My eyes scurried around the room and Eric's eyebrows furrowed in a farrago of conflicting emotions, wondering what I was looking at in fury, wonder, perplexity… "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," I responded immediately. "Stop it."

The heaviness in his hands lifted but he still looked at me with the harshness with which he had pushed me down. "What are you?"

"I'm not lettin' you treat me like everyone treats Sookie. Don't think I'll put up with lettin' everyone constantly buggin' me 'bout what I and where I'm from. I'm a livin', breathin', dyin' human being—that's all that concerns you. I can rescind my invitation if I'd like and I can go on never seein' you again, and I'll do it if need be. Now don't bother me no more about anything that's my business and I'll do the same for you."

I loved the feeling of his lips on mine—and I knew this fondness before I was aware that he had kissed me. He was not my first kiss, but I had never experienced such a flush of memory through the touching of lips. In spite of their innate sensitivity, a man's lips on mine typically didn't cause waters of emotion and sense inside of me to turn tempestuous—but with Eric it was different. His home wrapped around me and every sense was as clear as the water I could suddenly sense I came from. It was like we two were preserved in amber from the northwestern coasts from which he hailed. And it was not my home—I was not from Sweden nor did I have any lineage I was aware of from the area, but I felt like I was home with him. Embedded in the snow and between icy gust of air kissed in with the tide and warmed beside the undying, crackling fire… I was home.

I wondered if Eric felt the same, as his hands were covering me and his mouth begged against my lips and face and chin and neck. My fingers caught in his hair and I pulled every strand in a different direction, breaking it from its formal place and organization. His face met the dark crevices of my neck that had never before been touched so intimately and I pulled his torso as close to me as I could with the heels of my feet and palms of my hands.

Time sped forward and I could see a young man with cropped brown hair and beautiful, swirling tattoos of ink drawn across his chest and arms and neck. I didn't need to know any more; it was Godric. I could see Eric from so long ago above me even with my eyes closed and I could hear Godric teaching him the ways of the vampire. And time sped forward again, and Eric was alone and laughing at medieval courts and smiling in ladies' slender pale arms. I began to struggle—I could feel every woman and their skin and their names; I no longer felt like Eric was kissing me. I was every girl he'd bed before me.

"Eric," I breathed raggedly, tilting my face away and only making him kiss my nose and forehead. One of my hands raised and extended in the air, picking up some current subconsciously. "Sookie. She's gone."

"What?" Eric pushed away, sitting and standing with one fast breath leaving my mouth.

He was all of the sudden no longer in my room and breaking open Sookie's locked door. I stood up on wobbly legs made of jello muscle and cream bone and I walked out of my room and to Sookie's. I looked over his arm into the room, only to see emptiness and feel a cold draft from the open window blow back the tangled pieces of hair that stuck to my sticky cheeks. "Well, shit."

I slipped around Eric and walked onto the rug that took up half of the floor of Sookie's large bedroom. I hoped to feel something, but I received nothing. I folded up her messy bed; while doing so, I saw her slip out of bed and creep out of the bedroom—leaving through the door even though Eric stood between the doorframe and there would be no possible way she could actually get out of the room, and yet I saw what she had done just moments ago. When I placed the decorative and embroidered pillows over the more practical ones, I saw her scurry back into her bedroom and change into a pair of jeans and a purple sweatshirt. She slipped sneakers onto her feet and opened the window beside her bed as quietly as she could. She slipped out of it, sneaking down the roof and jumping onto the grassy ground with a satisfying thud.

I looked at the bed and turned back around to Eric. "She heard about Lou Pine's. She's off to Jackson."

"God damn it," he cursed.

"Don't use the Lord's name—"

"I don't give a shit about the Lord. He's just the fabrication of a bunch of primitive, delusional cretins' weakness and fear."

I shut my mouth at Eric's affront and my heart sped up in my chest.

I watched Eric as he flew over to the window and looked out, seeing Sookie was already well on her way. He pulled out his cell phone and began calling someone, who picked up after a few metallic rings.

"Meet me at my house as soon as possible. It's time to repay your father's debts, wolf," Eric said as he searched for something of Sookie's—he went through her hairbrush, one of her scarves, until he seemed satiated with the pajama shirt she'd slept in that night.

"Where do you think you're taking that?" I asked and he didn't answer, just rushed back into my bedroom to check the address of Lou Pine's on my laptop once again. I scoffed and walked down to my room, where placed myself between the doorframe. Eric sighed when he looked at me as though I was a little girl who was trying to keep her father from leaving for work.

"This is urgent," he said. "Move."

"Why's it urgent?"

"Because—"

"'Cause it's Sookie?" I finished his sentence as he probably would've liked to and his gaze grew more infuriated—not with the fact that I was being difficult and preventing him from doing as he wished, but because I was a _human_ who couldn't _understand_. If only he knew Sookie was just as much a human as I was, then maybe she wouldn't be placed on such a high pedestal.

He held my shoulders with his hands as he had done not so long ago, but this time I only felt the coldness of his skin and it was far from endearing. Trying to fight against his push was comically useless; I had never seen someone who was so effortlessly strong.

"Fine then, if you're in such a rush—I'll help you out. I rescind your invitation, Eric Northman."

Eric began moving at a faster pace that not even he could fight. Before I knew it he was gone and I heard the front door slam shut.

I gloomily gazed out the window that overlooked the front yard where Eric's black Cadillac pulled away into the night. I wrapped my arms around myself as if to imitate his touch—which was desperate to a degree of amusement. I dropped my arms and crept downstairs, each plane of wood sending a harrowing shiver through my body. In reaching the foyer, all I wanted was warmth, but that normally could not be gifted to me without the horrible senses of the past of others being planted in my mind.

So I padded down the hallways until the tiles of the kitchen touched my toes and I poured myself another glass of Grandpa Earl's ancient brandy and I sipped until I was silly; the old man's liquor could only warm me and keep my mind and senses numb to everyone else's. I sat in the dining room until morning, watching the blood that oozed from the dead man's body stain the rug to the floorboards. And yet, the scent of those beautiful drying flowers still tickled my nose between the whiffs of blood.


	4. Delta Dawn

**Thank you everyone for the reviews, favorites, and follows! I am so glad with the reception this story is receiving ( : I especially appreciate the feedback I have been getting of late, it really does help guide my writing. Enjoy this chapter, I hope you like it!**

* * *

That damned dried daffodil seemed to laugh at me. Its fading yellow petals bent and twirled like the arms of the hats of court jokers. It mocked me—remaining dead regardless of the stringent and sharp daggers my eyes stabbed into it with.

I sat in Gran's gardens with the soil sullying my white dress and all of my bouquets of dead flowers surrounding me in a pentagram-like order. I was sure it looked as though I was trying to perform an ancient ritual with all the old crones of Bon Temps. If anyone were to peak into the backyard they'd probably think me some wacky witch, but with Sookie gone hardly anyone ever visited besides Jason.

I hadn't heard anything from Eric since I'd rescinded his invitation, nor had I heard anything from Sookie. I'd been spending my time the past few nights trying to harness whatever peculiar power slept inside of me... All between my night shifts at Merlotte's, of course.

I picked up the daffodil from the ground and looked at it with a hard, long glower. Nothing. I scooped up handfuls of dirt and even asked God to reveal His light in me once more. Nothing. Then I asked Mother Nature… Nothing. After the daffodil trials proved fruitless, I moved on to a handful of dried thyme.

There was no energy coursing through my body that the earth gave to me—only the jumpy, spastic buoyancy I'd received from three large mugs of black coffee and the organic verve handed to me by the sun's rays. Otherwise, there was nothing. I was beginning to think that my life would only be one of vulnerability—that to my lack of control over my faculties. If I could not control myself, than I would likely reveal myself at the most untimely moments to the most inconvenient people. I was vulnerable.

I wanted to slap myself for beginning to cry, but I was too self-pitying at that very moment to work up the effort to do so. I didn't wail or bawl, I just cried that hushed and suppressed little weep that only the earthworms in the dirt could hear. I felt like a child for crying because I didn't think what I was crying over licensed my tears, but I did so anyway. I was cursed by something unnatural and mystical to know more than I should, and I had no way of controlling it.

A couple of tears slipped down my sun-baked cheeks and dripped off my jaw, hitting the piles of dead flowers around me. I didn't cry for long, but my tears made damp circles in my dress. I eventually held shut my eyes for a few moments, letting my eyelashes cluster with crystalline droplets of water. I waited until I'd pressed out all the tears.

I opened my eyes and a bright and blooming garden surrounded me—stronger and more vibrant than that which had not yet met my tears. A new scent filled the air—one best encapsulating the scent of new life. Starry-eyed with my translucent, trembling tears, I lowered my head towards the revived flower-heads and watched their long, green tails stiffen and fill with fresh water. Their stems did not disappear into roots that dove into the ground, they were still chopped unevenly and bundled together—but those perished plants that had been pressed or dried or left on the kitchen counters and dining room table were once again the picture of spring.

I picked up a windflower who's leaves seemed to smile at me and held it to my chest, letting the small and aromatic dew in the white petals soak into my skin. I felt like flowers were growing in my stomach—trumpet vine climbing up my ribcage and weaving between each pale and slender rib like it were climbing the lattice patchwork of a trellis. My eyelashes extended into the careful, skinny petals of a thistle and the looping roots of cherry blossom trees pulled me into the ground.

"Georgina?" The bucolic and endearing voice of a sibling called. I opened my eyes to the sky which seemed to descend onto me like opalescent teardrops of invisible tears.

A head poked into my enchanted line of vision. It was blonde and tanned and puzzled.

"What in God's name are you doin'?" Jason asked.

I sat up abruptly and that imperceptible shield, sewn together by the flowers, that wrapped me with an earthen cloak dissipated into the humid Southern air.

"Oh," I mumbled. I pushed back my hair and cleared my throat. "What's up, Jason?"

"Listen, George, you know I love you an' all but I'm a little freaked out by what's goin' on here," he broke it down to me. "I mean, I miss Gran jus' as much as you do but layin' in her garden ain't goin' to do nothin'."

"Oh, will you fuck off?" I rolled my eyes, standing up and sweeping pellets of soil from my flimsy frock.

Jason sighed. "Hoyt's here."

I nodded, precariously stepping around any semblance or appendage of one of the flowers that lay by my feet. "Y'all want anything to eat?" I walked past Jason on the lawn and he followed closely behind me, like a puppy on my heels at the sound of food.

"What'cha got?"

"I ain't been cooking much lately, but 'fore Sookie went on her _mysterious adventure_ into Mississippi, her and I made us some cherry pie. Care for any?" I asked.

"Sounds scrumptious, sis."

Hoyt had lumbered into the kitchen in a faded construction tee-shirt and one worn pair of Levis. When he sat down in the rickety chair at the kitchen table, the plates on the drying rack shivered with a twinkling rattle of porcelain. "How you doing, Hoyt?" I asked, scaling the table and walking to the fridge.

"Just fine, Georgina," he smiled.

I looked at him with a hospitable smile but I felt it leave my face in a sinking pout when I caught sight of the muddy footprints of extra-large boots blemish my immaculate floor. "Now Hoyt Fortenberry, look at what you done to my nice, clean kitchen floor!"

He fearfully turned his head to look at the mess he'd made and stood up; he sent the chair flying away with a clatter. "I'm real sorry, Georgina. I'll clean it."

"You better."

Jason huffed, popping his head above the opened refrigerator door. "Do you got to be such a neat freak?"

"Do you got to be such a pig?"

"I ain't no pig!"

"Excuse me, I lived with you for the first fifteen years of my life. I think I'm justified to make a statement like that. Now do you want pie or not?"

Jason opened his mouth but kept the words locked inside when I pulled the pie from the fridge and wavered it before his eyes. "Yes m'am."

"Then sit down."

Jason obediently slammed his bottom down in the chair opposite Hoyt's just at the same time his oafish friend sat back down. Out of the third of pie remaining, I cut them two bulky slices of cherry pie and warmed them up in the microwave for a few minutes. Hoyt and Jason chattered about their work at the construction site that morning while I watched the fuchsia compote ooze from the doughy mesh of the pie top. Blushing bubbles gurgled from the crystallized crust and coursed in berry rivulets down the glistening pie tray. The pie was almost the color of those carnations clipped and bundled and revivified lying in the garden out back. Those exploding bulbs that I had brought color and fragility back into…

The microwave timer went off and I opened its small door, releasing a warm air that diffused throughout the room. Foolishly, I reached into the small box and touched the tray.

"Don't you miss warm apple pie, Bill?" Sookie said behind me, her voice affectionate and too warm for the cold companion it was directed towards.

I spun around and looked at the table with wide eyes, seeing only Jason and Hoyt stare back at me with matching, unnerved eyes. "Y'alright, George?" Jason asked slowly.

"Yes. Sorry, touched that hot plate with my bare hands."

"Mhm," Jason hummed, the undertone of which undeniably suspicious. "Rookie mistake, kid."

"I know," I said with raised eyebrows as I carried the pie tin over with a wisely-chosen oven mitt.

"What happened to Pie-Pro 2.0?" Jason asked with curious eyes. He looked to Hoyt, his eyebrows lowered and explanatory. "After Gran, respectively."

Hoyt closed his eyes and nodded—much to Jason's comfort. It was one of those understanding expressions that only seemed to be compatible between two men in a moment of tenderness.

"Just off my game today, I s'pose," I bit the inside of my lip, knowing where my mind focused instead of the warming of pies.

Jason tilted his head to the ceiling with his mouth open, trying to cool the scalding pie in his mouth but keeping it planted in his salivating maw. After a few minutes of the awkward cooling process, he swallowed and sighed in the agreeable bliss only gifted by homemade pies. "George?"

"Yeah?"

"Hoyt here was jus' telling me that his Mama heard from Loretta Halstead who heard from Mary Ellen Walden—"

"It wasn't Mary Ellen, it was Jolene Walden," Hoyt corrected.

"Whatever. Hoyt was jus' telling me that there was a fanger o'er here the other night."

I pursed my lips, leaning into the counter until the surface's edge dug into the dimples at the bottom of my back. Jason's mention of Eric sent my head into the same buzz the old vampire had left my head in those few nights back. I thought of his lips on mine and the illusion his touch sent me into. With a tough bite of my tongue by chastising teeth, I pushed away the thought.

"An' how is that any of your business? Or Hoyt's, or Maxine's, or Loretta's, or Mary Ellen's, or Jolene's?"

"'Cause you're my sister, George. I already got one off and about with them God forsaken bloodsuckers, I won't have another," Jason warned. When Jason got tough on Sookie for matters like these, I tended to stand back and watch with a malicious smile pushing at the corners of my lips—watching like the Cheshire Cat from the foliage of the dark-topped elms. I rarely joined along, but looking back I am now glad I didn't; his attacks were proprietorial and overbearing.

"Watch your mouth, Jason!" I slapped him over the head.

"I hate it when you hit me!"

"Well, you're fixin' for another slap if you want'a keep talking to me like I'm your kid! You don't got no jurisdiction over who I choose to spend my time with."

Jason's dark eyes softened—not in a sympathetic or understanding way, but in the way they subside to those of a child lost in a problem when he doesn't understand a word that someone has used. He looked at Hoyt expectantly.

"It's like power… She's sayin' you don't got any power over her social life."

Jason looked back over to me, his eyes like rocks again. "Uh-uh! I promised Gran that I'd take care'a you! So, guess what? This jurisdiction actually _is_ mine!" He cried.

I scoffed dryly at his failed attempt at using vocabulary beyond his grasp. "You are dumber than a box of hair, Jason Stackhouse."

I began making my way out of the kitchen as he groaned in fury—his chair rocking back and forth as he bounced around trying to think of the right response. "You ain't got no right to speak to me that way, woman!" He exclaimed weakly.

At the sound of his retort, I made an immediate one-eighty. Marching back to the table with a tight scowl of clenching teeth and a wild head of honey-orange hair like the frilly hat of a marigold, I swiped Jason's plate of pie up from the table and dumped it down the garbage disposal before he could stop me.

"Georgina!" Jason bellowed, looking at the slice of pie sliding down the drain like it were the Titanic slipping into the midnight Arctic waters.

"Enjoy your pie, Hoyt," I said politely to Jason's guest as I left the kitchen.

Hoyt chuckled, swallowing down hunks of gooey pie.

* * *

Merlotte's was exceptionally busy that night. Consequently, I had been slaving around my whole shift without a moment's rest yet. One six-person party of rednecks, who without a doubt had six matching rifles out in their rusty old trucks adorned with American flags and bald eagle bobbleheads, had decided to harass me partway through my shift about the color of the hair on my head in comparison to the color of the hair on _other_ parts of my body. I also had the pleasure of another drunken hillbilly asking me to give him a "big wet one" at eleven o'clock. This hillbilly was an ex-mechanic named Herb, who had spent most of his afternoons and evenings slobbering across the bar at Merlotte's since '03—according to popular legend. I had to ask Arlene what a "big wet one" was, but not even she was entirely sure. After these two pleasant encounters, I had a five-minute contemplation in Sam's office about quitting, but then I remembered I needed some semblance of an income and I headed back to my tables.

Since it was a Wednesday and those early weekdays started heavily but died relatively early, I was cleaning up at midnight when an unexpected figure walked in. Arlene and I were wiping the tables when the winsome countenance of Pam appeared in the reflection of one of the buffed tabletops.

"Uh-uh…" Arlene shook her head fiercely, holding up her two pointer fingers and forming a cross—as if it could be used in defense against Pam. "I'm out'a here Gee, you call me when you're all good and done with the vampire, 'kay?"

I looked at Arlene as she backed away into the hallway which disappeared into Sam's office. Her crucifix necklace of sterling silver glittered and her fingers stayed pointed in the holy shape. "Alright, Arlene," I sighed. "Hello Pam."

"Georgina, I have to say, I expected you to play a more reputable role in the society of Bon Temps. You're made out to be more than some lackluster waitress," Pam commended, looking around the modest restaurant with puckered lips turned downwards in abhorrence.

"There ain't no reputable role in the community of Bon Temps. You could be a waitress, a mayor, a fangbanger, or a real estate agent… An' everyone'd still look at you like some half-assed hick."

Pam chuckled, clearly finding the societal limitations of Bon Temps laughable. However unbending these unspoken boundaries were, I quite liked living within them. The Southern charm of living out on a hill of grass under the hot yellow sun seemingly without a guise of correct grammar or ties to the urban world was gratifying in my mind, like sweet tea on the tongue.

"What're you here for, Pam?"

"I think you could take a pretty damn good guess."

I exhaled a short breath and threw my rag at the bar, wiping my soapy hands on my waist apron. "S'pose I do."

Not only was I unsure of how to approach this conversation, but I didn't even know how to explain myself. If I told her I didn't know how I had touched her and somehow translated a terrible image into her head, she'd tell Eric that I was weak but potentially useful and they'd use me at their will. My best choice was to lie about the extent of my control over my abilities.

"First off, I think it's important that you know I _didn't_ bring this up—Eric did. Seems like you didn't threaten him like you did me; in fact, you did quite the opposite. Only harsh condition you sent him away with was perhaps a nasty case of blue balls."

"He told you about that?" I asked in a fragile voice, not knowing how to react to the knowledge that Pam knew about the escapade him and I had faced.

"Of course he did. Going for the fish, huh? Or should I say shark... You sure you don't want to start off with someone a pinch younger than Eric?" She smiled sinfully, flashing cerulean eyes in my direction with a sadistic glare. "Do you have any idea how much experience he has? How many women he's been with? And by the looks of you," she hummed, instantly materializing in front of me with a gust of electric air. One cold and elegant hand held my waist and the other pushed up my chin to raise my lips to the height of hers. "I'd say you'd have none."

"I'm not interested in Eric like that," I laughed a little harder than I should have, the coral shading on my cheeks perhaps hinting at this. I drew away from her touch and sheltered myself behind the protection of the bar after a few long strides. "Now, I imagine you came here for another reason than inquiring about mine and Eric's…skirmish."

Pam wore a tailored skirt and blazer of lavender tweed; beige suede adorned her feet in ageless pumps and her golden hair twirled into a bun at the crown of her head. She smelled like cinnamon when she approached me once more and my cheeks flushed with an unsettled heat. Sometimes Pam made my heart feel like it was dripping with warm honey.

"Fine," she continued in her monotonous purr. I sprayed a sanitizing spritz onto an old blue rag and began wiping down the bar. Colorful liquors and juices slid away with each run of the rag. "What was _that?"_

I quietly resumed my cleaning and thought quickly of an effective response—to no avail, however, because I ended up stuttering and humming in my discomfort and lack of grace. "It's just what I do."

"What you…do?" Pam repeated critically. "Georgina, first you revived some stupid flower with just a look then you put something inside my head I had no control over. I want to know _what_ you did."

I looked back into the hallway, which faded into darkness about five feet in. I had no way of knowing where Arlene was hiding from Pam nor where Sam was milling about, but I was sure I didn't feel comfortable with having this conversation in a spot where any of my coworkers or late-night customers could overhear the content of mine and Pam's discussion.

I bit my lip and looked at the analog clock hanging beneath the exit sign by the kitchen door. I threw another rag at Pam and it hit her suited abdomen then fell to the floor.

"Pardon?"

"Help me clean so I can head home, then we'll talk," I explained. Pam looked at the rag as if it were some unidentifiable creature she had never before seen. After a long and lost stare at the rag, she slowly bent down and picked it up with the tips of her pointer finger and thumb nails. She walked over to the sink and dropped it in the metal tub.

"Why would I ever help you?"

"Because the faster I get done with this, the faster you'll be gettin' your answers."

She looked at the rag with another look of pronounced antipathy. "You know, I could have this shithole as clean as a whistle in less than a thirty seconds."

I stopped my ferocious scrubbing and looked at her with wide eyes. "Please?"

Within ten second of a figure whirling around the place like a ghost, the restaurant was glistening in its cleanliness. Once Pam stopped flying around like a buzzing bee, she was at the door and opening it, looking back at me. "You coming?"

* * *

In my rearview mirror I saw the taupe road twist and disappear into marshy forest. Pam's pensive glare still penetrated my cheek and I made an effort not to look her way. We were almost home and I hadn't answered any of her questions yet under the posturing that not even the car was a safe place to talk. It wasn't entirely untrue—I would put a considerable amount of things on the line just so no one knew about me like they knew about Sookie. I refused to become someone that everyone passed around and used to their own benefit.

When I turned off the engine and opened the door to my car, Pam was already out and waiting on my front porch. I unlocked the door and stepped in, sliding off my sneakers and walking into the foyer. "Come on in, Pam."

She walked in and looked around, pursing her lips in the way she always did. She followed my trail into the kitchen, where I proceeded to automatically head into the cleaning closet—stocked with newly-purchased but thoroughly-used supplies. I reached for the bottle of dish soap and took it to the sink where Hoyt and Jason had left their dirty and crumb-covered plates.

"So spill," Pam commanded.

"It's something I can do… Know things that not everyone else knows."

"Like Sookie?"

"No," I muttered, shaking my head. "I can't read minds."

"What are you doing then?"

I scrubbed the dishes hard with a sponge beneath the running water. I thought about Gran's great, old mind telling me that I shouldn't consider myself different from everyone else. I was special, but I was the same. She'd said I wasn't a mind-reader like Sookie but a past-reader. If someone had played Hearts on my dining room table and I sat down there a week after they had and touched the deck of cards they used, maybe I would see my nine cards lined up in front of me and three face-up a few inches beyond that. I would be sitting at the dining table, staying quiet and pretending I saw what everyone else saw—an empty dining table—but I would really be seeing what went on there a week past.

I explained this to Pam best I could, except I included something about being able to control whether I wanted to see something or not. So, Pam turned around and slid the toaster over to me. I looked at the reflective surface as it displayed a distorted picture of my face and I felt her eyes on me expectantly.

"The toaster?" I asked.

"The toaster."

I touched the cool surface with my fingertips and nothing in front of me changed. I couldn't control it nor could I see what had happened to the toaster in the past. But my eyes fidgeted and moved like I was seeing someone place toast in the toaster and pop it out, spreading some blonde marmalade over it with a dull butter knife. "Jason made toast o'er here for breakfast three days ago. He put butter and marmalade on it, but I was upstairs sleepin'."

Again, not entirely untrue. Jason _was_ here three days ago for breakfast and made himself toast with butter and marmalade, but I'd been sitting at the kitchen table with him, not sleeping upstairs. And after he'd had his toast, Jason's slugged two cans of beer and some iced tea. I didn't need to be some psychic to know that, I just had needed to be sitting down at the kitchen table watching him—which I _was._

Pam hummed. "Fine. Then what about all those people who were being…crucified and bled out? What on earth was that?"

"Just an old memory I picked up a while back," I fibbed. "What I can do ain't that useful, but I had to do the best I could to get you not to say anythin' to Eric."

I hoped discreetly telling Pam I wasn't helpful would help my cause, but based on her raised eyebrow and cold expression, I was worried what I'd said hadn't convinced her.

"And why wouldn't you want Eric to know?"

"'Cause I ain't going to let myself be used by you dead folk like you use Sookie. I don't want that life, and I ain't vacillating over that matter like Sookie. I want a normal life—and not in that half-assed way Sookie does where she talks that talk then goes off to Mississippi to hunt down some damned werewolves so she can find her vampire boyfriend. I won't have that life," I stated. It was a rare occurrence where I truly stood up for myself, but when matters such as these came up I was adamant.

"You're smarter than Sookie, and I'll give you credit for that. But you're hypocritical too. Aren't you the one who almost just let a thousand year-old Viking vampire god up her petticoat?"

I frowned, leaving her side and retrieving some iced tea from the fridge. "Maybe I did, but that don't mean I'll let him boss me around. And I rescinded his invitation into my house anyway; he ain't comin' back."

Pam's heels clicked in a dainty rhythm on the floor, she went to the pace of the second-hand of a clock. I heard her weight shift and a long sigh leave her mouth. "Fine. Explain the flowers."

"That I can't say nothin' about. I just like flowers and I don't like to see them die, and if I do see them die…they just don't."

"So it's…just flowers?"

"Yep."

Not a lie, so far it was just flowers.

"Well, that's damn useless and weird as Hell. But it's hard to say things surprise me anymore, this town is full of supernatural shit such as yourself. Hell, the only thing that's surprised me lately is that Eric is just now giving you a second glance and his head isn't one-hundred percent up Sookie's stupid ass."

I laughed, my body trembling with laughter at the remark and Pam's eyebrows alleviating of pressure at the twinkling sound. Perhaps she didn't expect me—typically more mousy than most—to do anything besides respond to her questions blatantly or obscurely, but the laughter at Sookie's expense seemed to take her by surprise. "And that, too. I knew you were hiding something all along, but I didn't expect it was an agreeable personality alongside a second sight," she smiled.

"I have an agreeable personality?" I looked at her with a small grin and light eyes.

"I guess so, but don't let it go to your head."

Despite her supercilious behavior and glacial demeanor, I did like Pam. Unlike most, she was unafraid to be candid, and with that was revealed the legitimacy of her compliments. Her keen insight into others was admirable as well. Perhaps I looked at her judgements subjectively, but her understanding of Sookie was faultless. Like me, she didn't understand all the fuss about the bratty blonde girl.

From my waist apron, my phone rang impatiently. Pam watched the black cloth of the pouch vibrate with the intrusion of a late-night caller and I reached for it, flipping open the sliver lid to my cell phone delicately.

"Hello?"


	5. Coat of Many Colors

**Hello everyone! Finally picking up this story again, I'm so, so sorry for the hiatus. I hope to kick off with this story again, because I know a lot of people were sad about the break; I hate it when I'm reading a story and the author leaves it unfinished, so I decided to keep going with this one. I hope everyone loves this chapter, please comment, favorite, and** **— most importantly** **— read! I love to hear what you guys have to say. Anyways, enjoy!**

* * *

I pressed the cold metal of my cellphone into my cheek, looking still at Pam from across the kitchen. The speaker on the other side of the line seemed hesitant to introduce itself.

Finally, she heard: "Gee?" It was Sookie, with a sob stuck someplace between her stomach and her mouth.

"So what made you decide to ring, Sook?" I asked. I turned back to the fridge to pull out a plastic carton of apple juice. A swift wind brushed past my ears and tickled the ends of my hair; when I turned away from the fridge, Pam and every trace of her visit to my kitchen was gone. I sighed to myself, wondering why a creature would ever feel the need to be so mysterious.

Sookie emitted a harsh sob and released the unthinkable: Bill had just called her after she spent the night trying to ascertain his whereabouts in Mississippi; he delivered a final goodbye and notified her on his revived affair with his maker, Lorena.

"I don't believe it, Gee. I can't. He'd die for me—I know that. He wouldn't jus' leave me behind! The last time I saw him he asked me t'marry him," Sookie wept into her cellphone's speaker. I sat down in one of the chairs at the table, spinning open the cap to the carton of apple juice. I suddenly felt like an older sister, a mother, even a grandmother. This role was one which I played most frequently during our years in high school; boys would fight tooth and nail for Sookie's fair countenance and cheerleader status, but only cast me a second look every once and again, wondering why such an outgoing girl could have a sister so mousy, so skinny, so bookish. It was I who held her hand when the boys thought their terrible, pubescent thoughts and Sookie heard each and every one of them.

Trying not to think of my ordinary and vague transformative years, I refocused myself on Bill's odd behavior. I figured Bill's torrent of disinterest in Sookie was not a result of nature but manipulation; in spite of my personal disinclination toward Bill, I knew Sookie was right when he said he'd die for her and that he loved her—he did. Someone had been listening to Bill while he was on the phone; he wouldn't have said that out of pure spontaneity—which I had determined was an attribute generally lacking in vampires.

"I won't believe that either. Even if Bill wanted to end things with you—which I know he don't—he wouldn't do it like that."

"That's what I'm sayin'!" Sookie exclaimed. "It was jus' the way he said it… He was so cold, Gee. He scared me."

"Well, are you still goin' to look for him out in Jackson?" I asked after I took a sip of the over-sweetened amber juice. I winced at the saccharine flush that drilled sugar into every crevice of my minutely-crooked teeth.

"Hell yes I am. If Bill's goin' to say that t'me, he's goin' to be saying that t'my face," Sookie decided. "But, Gee, I need your help."

I let out a long and heavy breath that seemed to have been sitting in the bottom of my lungs for eons. My head grew dense and my russet lashes leaden; a wave of fatigue lay waste to my every active sense as I heard news of my necessity to another one of Sookie's endeavors. As per.

"For what?"

* * *

As I soared eastward through Monroe on Interstate 20, I began talking to myself. This was a habit that announced itself when I'd first gotten my license at sixteen and I'd become allowed to drive by myself. Correcting the mistakes of drivers around me had eventually evolved into entire conversations with myself on the reveal of the moral compass by way of driving skill and etiquette. Now at the age of twenty-two, my conversations with myself were entirely unrelated to driving; I no longer had an excuse for insanity.

"Georgina, why—why are you driving to Mississippi? Sookie don't need you, she certainly don't need Bill, nor should you put yourself at risk so you can patch up her relationship with that damned vampire?" I asked myself with great and pensive thought. "Why can't you ever just do what you want, you damned fool? Gran always said so… 'Do what _you_ want and love. Know your own bone; gnaw at it, bury it, unearth it, and gnaw at it still.' She didn't never give Sookie or Jason that. Just you, who could never say 'no' to nothing."

I could feel the scowl dragging lines down my face as I waddled in my shallow pool of self-pity and looked as longingly at self-confidence as I would my silvery, distorted reflection in that very pool.

I continued to distract myself instead of dealing with my ultimate and personal failure, reflecting on memories in lieu of weaknesses. The rattle of Hank Williams from my car radio summoned these bygone times, when I would run through Gran's garden without having to worry about whether the sky painted sun, stars, or storm.

There was a vignette design to these blurry impressions; Jason standing before a broken plate and a splash of raspberry jam on the floor while looking up culpably to Gran; Sookie sitting on the rope swing that several years ago crumbled away into dust and oblivion; myself sitting in a buttery grove of dandelions, asking Gran why she'd call such pretty little things 'weeds' and want to tug them from the ground. These pieces of my mind could not be touched—not even with the purest of fingertips. Their fading corners and unsure borders labeled each picture expired and looked only fair behind panes of glass. I could not revive these memories, only duplicate them in my mind and hope for the best.

Time passed in the vehicle as suddenly as time did; as quickly as the unstoppable slide from one year to the next I seemed to have watched come and go since I could first hold memories. Things floated by quickly, nothing went slowly. But there seemed to be an exception to this rule: Vampires.

And another except might have been… Myself. Memories lasted long in my mind; they could not be swept away with the ease that sweeps away facts and figures caught in the holed net of Jason's mind. I held things forever, and not necessarily what the weather was going to be the next week or how many nickels it took to make three dollars, but the feelings, the dreams, the stories, the histories, the smells, the senses… I could imprint them in my mind forever, and I could steal them from the minds of others. The memory I had placed in Pam's mind was not mine, nor had I ever encountered it. That scene was just there, and I could wrap it around my finger like a piece of twine or a lock of my hair.

The tender backside of the Deep South swirled around my car like an Expressionist painting; in the night the trees had wild, jagged arms and the moon had a face. I could feel every car that had ran through this landscape as mine did, and I could see every child run to play in the Big Black River and every old man head out to it with his fishing pole. Running through such a rural stretch made my heart thump quickly with the raw nature of the land.

Once I arrived in Jackson, Mississippi, I was instantly daunted by the grandeur of a city. Truth be told, I had never seen a city with my own eyes. I nearly got in three car crashes as I maneuvered my way through the area, simply captured by the way the entire world seemed to light up from the small space between two skyscrapers in the city.

But the address Sookie gave me was that of a residence relatively distanced from the heart of the city, so I had little difficulty finding this place. And soon enough I was in an apartment belonging to a man named Alcide. He seemed kind and compassionate, good for Sookie—better than Bill was to her. But in times like these, when Sookie faced an ultimate tragedy, there was only one living person in the entire world who could console her: me.

Alcide's sheets smelled like sandalwood and detergent. So much detergent that I could see him bundling the white linens in his hard arms every morning to carry them to the washing machine. In the run of my hand across the smooth bedclothes I could feel his hurting heart; he wished to rid someone of these very sheets.

Sookie's tears would perhaps permit Alcide peace; there was a chance her flowery fragrance might replace that of the girl who used to sweeten his bed. I felt lost tears roll over my thumb and knuckle as I brushed away her tears. However much Sookie wiggled her way into my deepest nerves, these tears could purify my every thought of her. No one deserved these tears, not even Bill. These were tears of absolutely heartbreak.

"He was so mean, Gee," Sookie hiccuped. Her nose was crinkled and hot pink, her eyes glossy and filled with spilling water. "He ain't never been that mean."

"Then that ain't Bill, Sook. You and I are goin' to find out why in the Hell he'd say such terrible things, and you and I are goin' to watch him get on his very knees and beg for your forgiveness. I swear it, Sook."

"I love you, Gee," Sookie cried. I could feel her fading into exhaustion in my arms.

"I love you too, Sook," I muttered in her hair. We both faded away soon after. Sobs turned to sleepy mumblings, tears turned to sleep in our eyes.

Though her and I both climbed through black passageways of sleep, I was awakened in my dreams by a knock at the window. When my eyes opened, I was the only one in the bed, and a figure hovered outside the window.

I inhaled quickly in fear before my eyes could identify the figure that could float several stories from the ground. Despite the anger I still felt an angry burn in my heart for this figure, I could not stop myself from walking to the window and opening it.

"Eric? What are you doin' out there?" I asked in a hushed voice, hoping not to wake Sookie even though I was sure she was no longer in the room. I considered the possibility that Sookie had gone to be with Alcide, which riled curiosity in my heart. Yet, I was more curious about Eric standing outside Alcide's window.

"Waiting for you to invite me in," he answered. I leant out the window and looked to my right and left to see if there was any logical explanation to Eric's ability to fly. I found none.

"Can all vampires fly?" I asked him.

"Can all humans sing?" He replied. I raised my eyebrows and considered my tone-deafness. I stepped aside to give him room.

"Come on in," I invited.

With practiced agility, Eric's feet met the carpet of Alcide's room. He looked around, taking in the ordinary white walls and the recently-emptied picture frames on top of Alcide's dresser.

"Here to visit Sookie?" He asked, turning around slightly.

"Why are you here, Eric?" I asked him, avoiding his question. The fascination of his height hanging over mine captured me at the moment—I could not focus on reality, or even if this was that. All I knew was that I could hear the tide lap in my ear when he neared, and smell the North Sea with every movement of his limbs.

"I'm not. This is my dream, and because you are what you are, it's yours too."

I felt my eyebrows quickly furrow at his words, but I could not stop them from pulling apart either. His words would like a riddle riding right through my brain, but I couldn't care to solve it.

With the warm wind rolling through the window, he moved too. He was just as soundless, just as gentle, just as delicate. It was odd to see how easily such a mountain of a man could move with such stealth. Between his fingers, he captured a silky lock of my orange hair. He touched it tentatively, as though it could burn his pale skin.

"You dream about me, Eric Northman?" I asked coquettishly. Something about the way I functioned in this supposed dream didn't seem lifelike; I was not a flirt.

His eyes faltered as he looked down, then answered slowly: "Yes."

By the look on his face, it seemed that Eric couldn't understand something. I began to think that that which he couldn't understand was me, but that wasn't possible… Eric knew everything, understood everything.

"Why?" I asked. His thumb smoothed across my freckled cheek, thus ripening the cry of a northern ocean's waves in my ear. And he could hear it too, and smell the salt in my hair. His lips speedily met my hairline, and he claimed me from the head down. His hands dug deeply into the subtle fire within my hair; he covered himself in me.

"You're the only way I can feel it again," he answered against my hair. "I can feel human again, just for a minute. I can feel home again."

I looked up to him, seeing a harsh sincerity in his cold eyes. When I placed my hands on his hard, broad shoulders, I felt comparatively miniature. I was but a fragile twig by contrast of his greatness, yet a part of my heart beat with ownership. A gentle tug of my hands lowered Eric's lips to mine and the lapping of the waves grew tremulous; his mouth was just as thoroughgoing as the comb of the water on sand. When his kiss became devouring, I let him hold me entirely in his arms, for once again I was bathed in the cold of the North Sea.

Despite my lack of size and the coldness that only Eric's arms shielded me from, a surge of heat flushed through my every blood vessel and I backed him up against the edge of the bed. He pulled me down with him, hands still lost in my hair, and I kissed across his cheek and jaw with an expertise that I was sure I did not possess in reality.

When I tore my lips from his skin temporarily, the scent of pine and sea-salt swept through my nose. I put a greater length between my face and Eric's, still sitting atop his hard torso. I had no doubt that my skin was pink at the cheeks and nose, that my lips were red and raw, that my hair was as chaotic as wildfire, but I didn't mind. The tundra within his eyes could still cool me.

And I pressed my thumb lightly to his lips, brushing over the reddened skin, and our minds were both seized by something quick and delicate.

An image of green mountains opened up, split by a cerulean estuary. The vertical walls of the fjord were dappled white, resembling glacial waterfalls spilling into the reflective waters that moved with the indiscernible stillness of the sun passing over our heads every day. In the distance—from where our picture was painted—white mountaintops were powdered over a violet sky with a matching fragility to that of the clouds. I could have reached out and touched it all with just a finger, but he captured me again with his lips.

Then a rock of something electric hit me, and I was alone—not alone, but no longer with Eric. He was not there. My legs were warm, especially the tops and the insides that were burrowed deeply beneath the covers, as were my breasts, as was my stomach and my head. I turned my head to see Sookie's blonde hair still tangled up with tears beside me, however. I felt guilty that such an emotion could capture me with my near-sister sleeping soundly next to me.

I lay a messy head back down on the pillow, trying to sink back into the sheets in spite of the uncomfortable heat my body had accumulated. I eventually slipped back into sleep, having dreams that were my own—not belonging to Eric. In my sleep I dreamt of swimming in that cerulean fjord, slipping into the saline depths like distant comets slip into the blackness of space; the fruits of the sea tinkering quietly beneath my kicking toes like the mysteries of our galaxy tinkering behind our blind eyes.

* * *

"No fucking way!" I heard the words leave Alcide's mouth from the kitchen as I was ripped from sleep. My arms lazily twirled in a clockwise circle around me like the second and minute hand of a clock. My fingertips grazed the wrinkled edge of the bed and I realized they had not interfered with what they should have—Sookie.

I then realized Alcide was arguing with Sookie in the kitchen. I stretched my legs towards the opposite edge of the bed and pushed myself up, letting my feet touch the scratchy rug. When I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, the first thing I saw was the closed window across from Alcide's bed. Last night, in the dream-encounter with Eric, I had opened the window. It was now closed. I was sure unsure to whether that dream was mine, or Eric's or both of ours. Weird things often happened in my dreams, but it was his words that had hung as a shadow over the possibility that it was a dream belonging to us both

 _"I'm not. This is my dream, and because you are what you are, it's yours too."_

What did that mean? The dream was Eric's, but because I _am_ what I _am,_ it was my dream too? And can Vampires even dream?

"I know you're still hurtin' over Debbie," I heard Sookie's identifiable voice ring over the sizzling of a frying pan. "But seeing her with those creeps might help you get over her!"

"Are you insane? Either one of us showing up after last night is just asking to get our asses kicked!" Alcide responded harshly. A loud clutter sounded from the kitchen and I hurriedly dressed myself, wondering how comfortable I was with Alcide and Sookie being alone. "You go if you got to, but don't put your shit on me."

I passed Alcide in the hall as I headed for the kitchen. He sent me a dark look as I passed and I cast my eyes toward the floor to avoid his daunting countenance. When I crept into the kitchen on quiet toes, Sookie was sitting at the small, round table that served as Alcide's dining table. She looked at me quickly when I entered and smiled halfheartedly; her argument with Alcide had clearly made a dent in her day.

"Good mornin'," I greeted with a full-hearted smile, hoping to lend some joy to her. She opened her arms for a hug and I went to accept. A night of tears never failed to reforge our bond.

"Not necessarily a good mornin'," Sookie responded with a frown.

"Don't say that, Sook. I meant what I said last night. You and I are goin' to find Bill and figure out what all this is about."

Sookie smiled fully again, her golden curls matched her golden smile well. "Good. But first, you and I have got to make a call to someone. We're goin' to Lou Pine's tonight, but we got to look the part to get in."


	6. That's The Chance I'll Have To Take

Moving in a suit of leather was quite a tricky thing to do; I didn't know how Pam did it so often. Janice Herveaux had bound my torso in a cage of ribbed leather and had nearly taped a pair of glossy black pants to my spindly legs; she had bound my hair in two tight red braids plaited with violet ribbons, and she had strapped my feet into platforms that pushed me several inches away from the ground. I was just glad she hadn't put me in a wig; Sookie wore a sleek, cropped bob the color of ink over her golden head.

"I'm goin' to be listenin' to people's thoughts, okay? An' I want you to see what you can see. I know you don't know how t'control it and all, but please try—for me," Sookie whispered in my ear as her and I walked beneath the illuminated entrance to Lou Pine's.

Sookie looked at me with her dark eyes—eyes that I had seen water so profusely and frequently since my arrival in Jackson that I could not say no to them. "Okay."

Sookie and I split, as did Alcide who followed along like a lopsided third wheel, to cover as much ground of Lou Pine's as we could. In spite of my costume, I still felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb in the riotous bar; I frequently gained the odd eyes of bystanders. One drunken man even took to pulling at one of my girlish red braids with his grubby fingers before his friend pulled him away—I was but a porcelain doll to these savages.

An auburn-haired woman rushed by me, accidentally knocking me aside. This was an incident that I was familiar with—both metaphorically and literally; I would have brushed it aside if it had not have tested the edges of my capacity.

I heard the howling of wolves ripping through the loud music that played from the bar's speakers. While the sound of belting wolves would sometimes be played as the tranquil soundtrack to a rural, winter's night, there was nothing peaceful in this cry. It was a tear through any ephemeral joy, gushing scarlet blood.

The night when I had been with Eric at my house, with the werewolf scrambling beneath his body before he had sunk his fangs into the wolf's squirming neck, I had felt a branding on my neck similar to that which I felt now. Fire sparked at the top of my spine and I instinctively ran my hand across the smooth, untouched skin of the back of my neck. My trembling fingers waited to trace a newborn scar, yet there was nothing there but jagged nerve endings.

A heavy hand on my shoulder pulled me away from the agony I was slipping into. I turned and was instantly captured in a cloud of must, ripened by the scent of sweat, wet fur, and beer. The one hand on my shoulder slipped to clutch one of my cheeks, the other grabbed at my exposed arm.

"Alcide Herveaux brought you along? He sure's got a thing for redheads," the man who kept me between his hands dragged me in closer so I could be further engulfed in his stale odor and damp embrace. "Lucky for you, so do I," he chuckled. When his lips parted to bear his yellowing teeth, I tried to break myself from his iron grasp to no avail.

"Let me go," I grumbled as I pulled away.

"A lady like you's can't be here in the first place, Alcide should know that! He couldn't'a thought you'd slip in without capturing a few fellows' eyes?" He laughed. With one free hand, I caught his wrist and tugged him off of me. That burn that still heated the back of my neck gushed from my body to his in that one touch, and I was instantly free of him. He jumped backward and yelped, awkwardly straining his neck as his hand clenched the scar that already marked his neck.

"What in the Hell—"

"Cooter!" A shriek announced from the bar. The man looked toward the origin of the sound then looked back at me; his mouth was pinned in a straight, grim line. He reached out to grab me harshly by the neck, but once his hand made contact with my skin he whipped himself away, as though I were hot to the touch. He looked again at the bar where his female companion yelled for him once more, and when his head turned I saw his angular scar bubbling and dripping blood down onto the hem of his white shirt.

"Christ almighty, woman," he grunted and pushed my shoulder backward. I stumbled into the crowd, grabbing for something to pull me away. But it was this man, Cooter, who captured me again and took me away. I could not exercise my unknown abilities when he took my elbow, and I was soon pushed into a locked bathroom. Two tall stalls sat opposite two mirrored sinks; toilet paper was strewn across the floor like confetti and the walls were spray-painted with neon obscenities. The bathroom door reflected with a full-body mirror; its handle shook but would not turn, and I eventually resorted to sitting in one of the stalls with my knees to my chest.

After several minutes that ticked by slowly like hours do, the door eventually barged open with three men smelling like Cooter had—sweat, wet fur, and beer. They kicked open the stall beside me with big, black boots, and then mine before dragging me out.

"Coot said he left us a surprise in 'ere," one said as he threw me against a sink. The metal bowl felt as though it pulverized my hip bone when I hit it. I was sure a purple pool of a bruise would surface before the night ended. "I didn't think he'd leave us such a pretty one."

"She don't got no meat on her, though," a second commented, pulling at my arms. His dirty hand then reached for my waist to pulling me closer to him from the center. He looked at my chest quizzically, skeptically, then with mild disappointment. "Ain't got no tits."

 _I am aware of this,_ I thought to myself with a scowl. I desperately flung a knee upward to try and launch it into the crotch of the man who'd first thrown me into the sink. The third man, smallest in stature but most gruesome in countenance, jerked me sideways—both away from the two men and the sink farthest from the door.

"I like them like this," he snarled. His lips were thick, wormlike—sat on his face unusually like two pink slugs sliding across his wide face. "So skinny you could snap 'em like a twig," he spun me around until my pelvis again was crushed between his pulsating hips and the bowl of the sink. Though his fingers danced on the hem of my leather pants, they began to slide downward to grab hold of a fleshier part of me. He squeezed hard, then laughed. "Though, you ain't all bone, are you?"

The man's hips again pushed hard into my bottom—so hard I was sent sliding several inches along the sink. He yanked me backward with a sharp pull at my waist, but the sharp jerk gave me time and several inches to launch outward and slam the base of my palm against the mirror hanging on the bathroom door. Into nearly a thousand fragments, varying in shape and size, the mirror shattered to the ground with a mellifluous crackle. The pieces fell like a puzzle being dumped out of its cardboard box.

As punishment for my action, I was pushed into the shattering mirror myself—where I lost my balance and fell to the floor into a pile of shards. Several pieces dug into the backs of my legs and in my arms, but nothing compared to the mirror fragment that lodged itself deeply into my lower abdomen. The shard sat tucked in the leftward curve of my hipbone. I cried loudly once my body overcame the shock that accompanied the injury. As the three men took steps toward me, I looked at the mirror in my body and reached for it with clenched teeth. I would only hurt more if I left it in.

With an uncompromising tug, I pulled the mirror out of my hip. It was painted with sheer coat of blood and sliced my hands which held it tightly yet unsteadily, but I held it up as a weapon regardless. Blood gurgled from the deep slice, but I grabbed hold of the sink and pulled myself from the ground.

"Damn, you're a fighter!" One laughed bitterly, the chopped sounds leaving his throat sinking as deeply into me as did the shard of glass now in my bleeding hands. He pushed me with his boot and kicked the glass out of my hand, then dropped to pull me toward him.

For a moment, I felt the pain of my dripping incisions disappear from my body. The man who touched me collapsed under the pain I sat silently beneath. When his hand slipped from my arm with fragility, the weight of the pain broke back onto me again. However, the predicament I had accidentally put him in left him defenseless on the ground, and I took the chance to grab the shard of bloodied mirror and sink it into the man's neck.

Murder. I had done it; it was done.

Two wolves now stood before me. Their eyes were lowered with their heads and a fuming growl vibrated from behind their jagged sets of teeth. Before I could adapt my defense mechanisms from those regarding men to those regarding wolves, the claws of one of the beasts sank deeply into my shoulder and dragged toward my right breast. This was the first time throughout this encounter that I truly screamed; the pain was excruciating. But it left me—here and there, on and off—with every touch and nibble of those wolves. A canine yelp would sound when they neared. As the blood flowed out of my body, I was no longer able to understand what I had done, how I had gotten there, what the wolves had done, and what I had done.

* * *

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a brass gramophone, spinning with a record that played a mournful opera. Behind the gramophone were spines of books assorted neatly behind panes of glass, the small golden text on each spine flickered with the light of the fire in the fireplace opposite the bookcase.

I sat up with a startling degree of comfort, in spite of my most recent memories whipping through my mind. I could feel the claws and the teeth ripping through my skin and my muscle, but when my pale hand raised to touch the skin where there should've been gashes, my skin was smooth and devoid of scarring or suturing.

In perplexed curiosity, I kicked my feet out from beneath the silk sheets and planted them on the floor. Upon looking at the Oriental rug my feet had landed on, I caught sight of the garments I wore: a set of silken cream pajamas consisting of a boatneck, quarter-sleeve blouse and a pair of wide-leg pants. The outfit was quite comfortable, but I was further perplexed by why and how I was dressed in this attire. I soon realized the two braids Janice had made of my hair were undone and my hair streamed freshly-washed and sweet-smelling to my shoulders.

I felt as though my body should've been fractured to some degree, that I should've taken things slowly—but I could not find reason for this. I was in perfect health; movement came with no difficultly. I also felt as though my mind should have been fractured to some degree, but something about the attack in Lou Pine's had not struck me as… frightening; that, or it had yet to strike me.

There was a set of metal doors that provided the only exit from the room. No windows lined the walls nor any access to a bathroom; there truly was no way out aside from the metal doors. I approached them cautiously, squinting my eyes as if to read the exotic engravings carved across their surface.

"And it's silver," I noted to myself quietly. "No windows and a silver door," I sighed to myself. I tried not to admit to myself that I was most-likely within the residence of a vampire.

I was shocked to find the doors opened with a gentle push at the crack between them, or I was perhaps putting more power into my push than I felt; an odd current of electricity zipped up my spine when I pushed. And yet, when I emptied into the hallway, my unlikely abundant strength failed me.

"Our special guest has finally awakened," a voice erupted in my right ear. Before I could turn to look, I was plucked from my spot in the hallway and placed comfortably on a suede chaise lounge. I was in a parlor, a room dressed in the same fashion as that in which I had woken up. In spite of the generally warm temperatures in Mississippi, the owners of this manor clearly had a fondness for fireplaces, as one roared with yellow flames not ten feet from me. The walls were red and stacked with books, although the bookshelves made space for Antiquity-period sculptures and busts that were titled with golden nameplates. A cherry oak table sat in front of me, with a glass of white wine on it next to an elaborate chess set. I would have devoted more time to studying the intricate figures of the knight, queen, and bishop had the figures across from me not been even more intriguing than the chess pieces. On a camelback couch matching in material and color with my chaise lounge, one Eric Northman sat with a small grin on his face. Not far from him sat a dark-featured man I had not ever seen before. The same man who had dragged me down to this parlor also stood close to me. Temporarily ignoring other company, I squinted my eyes at Eric in a scornful and skeptical fashion. In truth I was observing the grooves of each muscle beneath the blue sweater he wore, and found myself—again—perplexed by how these grooves seemed to emulate those of the Roman emperors captured in the manor's Classical sculpture collection.

"Georgina Stackhouse," spoke the man who had delivered me to the parlor. I looked to him; his look was nearly elven, his features continually pointed and drawn into angles that revealed the late age of his turning. He cleared his throat and pulled a file from a drawer of the table that separated us four in the parlor into opposite corners. "Not your last name, but we'll play with it for now," he added.

"Stackhouse is my last name."

"Are you the daughter of Corbett Stackhouse or Linda Stackhouse?" The man asked.

"No, Adele Stackhouse adopted me legally when I was seven months old. E'eryone knows Sookie is the one with the magic. I ain't a Stackhouse by blood, so I don't got none of that," I declared.

"That all makes sense, Miss Georgina, except," he huffed, looking back to the papers. "Well, you do know a Mister Bill Compton?"

"I do."

"As I am the King of Mississippi, there is a Queen of Louisiana. And as Bill resides in Louisiana, he is beneath her queendom and is her subordinate. Now these papers here," the man tossed the file onto the table so I could see. I glanced at the papers, hoping only to cast a quick look to not draw any notice, but I could not help my latching pupils.

It was a file I'd seen before, the front page an image of a family tree. At the bottom of the arrangement were Sookie's and Jason's boxes, hanging like the ripened fruits on the tree—Sookie's circled in red ink. And beneath Sookie's and Jason's boxes was "G. Stackhouse", written in the same script I had seen before. I tentatively reached out to pull the papers closer, and I saw the pale, manicured hand that had held it out for me in the reflection of the window above the sink.

"These papers are from the queen, Queen Sophie-Anne. She gave them to Mister Compton and sent him back to Bon Temps, from where he originated—as I'm sure you're aware—to procure a certain Sookie Stackhouse… And the rest is history, as you know very well" he said quickly. "But the queen did not write your name on this paper, that was Mister Compton. Why would he have done that, Miss Georgina?"

I looked at the paper with a furrowed brow, realizing the reality the man's words pieced together in my mind. Bill had been sent by his queen to learn about Sookie; everything was planned. Did he even love Sookie?

"Miss Georgina?" The man repeated.

"Curiosity, I reckon? I do not know sir, and I don't know how I'm s'posed to, seein' I can't read people's minds or nothin'."

"Russell, why are we making a fuss over this little girl?" The man sitting on the couch beside Eric asked with an accented tongue. His eyes drew into mine as he raised his thick eyebrows, clearly unimpressed with my slight stature and superficially dull nature. I looked down at the chessboard in front of me with feigned disinterest; his attitude slightly wounded me, but that was not worthy of sharing with everyone. I should have been glad a vampire did not want to deal with me, but blatantly revealing his thoughts on my being absolutely insignificant in front of Eric was unfortunately embarrassing.

I looked to Eric's shoes beneath the table, feeling my eyebrows furrow once more. Eric knew very little of me, and what he did know about me wasn't enough to distract him from Sookie, but he _did_ know something. Yet when I denounced any allegations suggesting I may share powers similar to those belonging to Sookie, he said nothing.

"Not enough meat on her bones to feed even one of us," the same foreign man scoffed, leaning back into his chair with indiscreet distaste.

"May I go?" I asked loudly, wishing to leave the room as soon as possible. Again, I was glad a vampire had no interest in drinking my blood; but, the embarrassment of the man insults before Eric was becoming too heavy to bear. "And go as in leave wherever in the Hell I am?" I raised my voice.

"You may go to your room only, I am not done with you yet," Russell answered. As I stood and prepared to leave, Russell shouted: "Guards!"

"If you will permit, I can escort the lady to her room. I would like to inquire into how Miss Stackhouse _actually_ took down two of your Weres," Eric requested.

I looked down at the Oriental rug, awkwardly tracing the design with my pupils as Russell permitted Eric's escort. I did notice that Eric was the only one who actually acknowledged that Stackhouse was, in fact—and legally, my last name. Russell had only called me 'Miss Georgina'.

Eric was soon by my side—nearly a foot above me, but still beside me. He extended an elbow, acting as a true escort in the most mannerly fashion. Hesitantly, I touched his forearm and let him lead me out of the parlor. When the guards closed the doors to the parlor behind us, I released my light grip on his arm.

"Eric, why didn't you tell 'em that I—"

"Georgina, shut up," he said firmly beneath his breath once him and I reached the base of the grand staircase. When we begun out ascension, I glared at him beneath heavy lashes. The walk to my chamber was silent—Eric was even more quiet on his feet than I, and Gran called me 'Twinkletoes' for a reason.

Thankfully no guards were yet posted beside my doors, and Eric quickly opened the doors to my chamber. Once we were within the security of my room, I had to close the doors behind us, as they were layered in thick silver.

"Tell me now!" I insisted.

"Georgina, Russell Edgington is nearly three-thousand years old. Believe me when I say that you don't want him knowing about what you can do."

"I do believe you Eric, but what does it matter to you if Russell knows? How is having a one-thousand year-old vampire knowin' about what I can do any better?"

Eric sighed and looked around the room, trying to find his answer to my seemingly dumb question painted someplace on the walls or furniture.

"And it's not like anyone has a name or explanation for what I can do so who gives a rat's ass!" I exclaimed, walking to the bed to start folding the sheets. I was getting out of here; I was certainly not going to get caught up in all of this vampire bullshit. I only went to Jackson to help Sookie find her runaway fiancé, not to deal with any of this crap. I voiced this fact to Eric.

"Georgina!" Eric eventually boomed, successfully shutting me up. "What do vampires despise the most about being what they are?"

My brow furrowed and I bit the inside of my bottom lip. "Bein' heartless, greedy, pale bloodsuckers?"

"Please, Georgina, use your head."

I sighed, shrugging and actually taking the time to think. "Not bein' able to save the humans they love, I guess? I don't know, I'm not one of you."

But I had a better answer for him.

 _Eric was over a millennium old; he'd lived through everything we learned about in history class like it was nothing and he had to keep all those expired years to himself,_ I consulted my previous contemplation… _Eric spent hundreds of years alone, watching human lives fade and bloom again around him like annual flowers. He was the perennial sage of the universal gardens._

"You're lonely. Anything you know or love has to die… An' you can't."

"And when you've touched me, what do you see?"

 _I can taste the North Sea; feel its melancholy waves tug my fingers back and forth and stain my hands with salt. I can see the fjord you played in as a boy—in a time so long ago the books can barely remember; I can smell the winds that whistled through the pine that sat on the cliffs dripping over the steep walls of a great blue mouth of the ocean. I can hear the snaps of a fire made by your parents; smell the twirling smoke that left the circular window at the center of your longhouse's thatched roof._

"Everything you know and love that had to die."

Eric was soon in front of me, standing very near. His large hands captured the two sides of my face with a surprising slowness and unsteadiness. No immediate memory flushed through my head when he touched me, yet a soft snow began to drop from the very ceiling we two were beneath. I looked up at the fragile snowflakes that floated down—no origin in particular.

"What is it?" Eric asked quietly and patiently.

"Snow," was my answer. I had never seen snow before. And as though imitating the dream, where I touched Eric's lips with my thumb and our eyes opened to the fjord, I raised my hand to lay my hand on his cheek. Once the warm skin of my fingers met his cold cheek, he looked up to see the snow.

"Snö," Eric said to himself.

I had never controlled these faculties before, but it suddenly seemed so easy.

With Eric's throat not far from by eyes, I watched him swallow slowly and look down at me again. "Russell has three times as many memories as I do. When he finds out he can see them all again—using you—what do you think he'll do to you?"

 _Chain me up in his basement someplace. Lock me in this room forever. Keep me as his personal pet._ I, too, swallowed nervously.

"This is," he spoke, then brushed his thumbs upward to brush the fallen snow from my eyelashes. " _Everything_ to me."

I slipped backward, releasing myself from his grip and him from mine. His eyes faltered, turning to reality. The snow was gone, his home was gone; I wanted to give it to him, but I couldn't let myself become a toy for all vampires to use when they get homesick.

"And you want me for the same reason Russell will!" I exclaimed, turning my back on him; though, instantly, he was before me once again—his hands on me again. Though unlike last time, there was no memory to float down from the ceiling.

"This is _still_ everything to me," he said lowly. His fingers threaded in the roots of my hair, pulling my head to an angle so I could look meet his eyes. My eyesight morphed into that of tunnel vision; being so close to Eric seemed illuminating. Every trace of energy in me stood up at an erect angle. I had never felt so close to another person when I met his eyes; and yet, he was not even a human being.

"Why ain't I all torn up after that werewolf attack, Eric?" I asked.

As though culpable for some common crime, his eyes averted mine. "I fed you," he said, but his voice grew more and more steady with every passing letter.

"So I should have a whole bunch of dirty dreams about you from now on, is that right?" I asked and he chuckled lowly. A smile illuminated his fair features, and he looked down at me with something aside from possessiveness.

"Nothing you won't enjoy," he responded. "Georgina," he continued on a more serious note.

"Yes?"

"I'm going to get you out of here," he spoke with molars clenched together, as though his head bore some unknown force. "But there's something I have to do first."

I expected a flush of anger; why would he delay my rescue? And yet, the gravity laden in his every features soothed my expectation.

"What do you have to do?"

"Something I've been waiting to do for over a thousand years."

"What?"

He shook his head, unwilling to answer. Yet I stole the answer from him with a brush of my hand against his cheek. The hot gurgle of revenge igniting my every blood vessel; this feeling was not mine, but I felt it as I watched those muscular wolves follow their master out of Eric's doorway a millennium ago. I could feel the cold, heavy metal of Eric's father's circlet in my hand as Russell Edgington carried it away from his private collection all those years ago.

"Georgina, you can't steal!" Eric reprimanded me immediately. The crinkle between his brows and the subtle curl of his lip told me his anger was not legitimate.

I began to smile in return, but his attention was grasped by something else suddenly. Any string of intimacy between us snapped and he released his hold on me. He soon stood by the door.

"Open them," he ordered, unable to touch the metallic surface of the doors. Obediently, I did as told. When I tried to follow him into the hallway, he grabbed my wrists and held me still. "Stay here."

My russet eyebrows furrowed and I stepped forward to no avail; he kept me planted where I was.

"Please, Georgina," he urged with a more pleading tone than before.

"Why?" I asked.

He shook his head and I soon felt his lips on my hairline, smoothing over the silken baby hairs that still grew where my suntanned, freckled forehead met my pale scalp. My questions seemed to leave me with his affectionate gesture; I still wished to go and see what had disturbed him, but I was willing to resign and wait for him to visit me with an answer. I said nothing, but stood still and uprooted myself from the ground I stood on. When I looked up to him to meet the face that had kissed me so gently, there was nothing but a blur.


	7. Georgia On My Mind

**To everyone who has messaged me and commented about updating... here it _finally_ is! I played heavily with mythology and folktale in this chapter, and I sincerely hope my tweaking does not offend anyone. I'm trying to give Gee a vibrant origin, and I think I've created something that should fit. And I know it seems _very_ mystical and supernatural, but we are dealing with a world of coexisting vampires and humans here! I apologize in advance for leaving you high and dry at the end of this chapter, but things will probably start off well in the next chapter as a result (; I hope everyone enjoys! Your comments, favorites, and follows seriously keep me going... ***A recent comment actually inspired me to get this chapter up... So PLEASE comment, it makes me so happy and willing to keep going!*****

* * *

Being kept in a room for an innumerable amount of hours really brings the word 'prisoner' to reality. Without any windows or clocks, I had no way of knowing how many hours were dwindling away. The silver door had been locked at some point during my many naps, and no one really came to rescue me. I wasn't expecting anyone to—but the fantasy brought some color to the dire situation. I could imagine the doors flying open behind Eric as he stood for me with waiting arms. _If only._

Whether or not it was a good idea, the time did allow me to hone whatever ability it was that hid deep inside me—buried someplace between my brain and my toes. I would drag my fingers along the spines of the books on the wall opposite the bed; every once and a while I would feel a twinkle in my eyes. With each book that sent that rush of electricity, I pulled it from the bookshelf and pressed the pads of my fingers into its pale pages. Sometimes I got nothing, but other times I could feel its last holder, and see his fingers speedily pass through pages.

But instead of grabbing a book whose glimpses of the past I could see, I took one that I got nothing from. I opened its cover and saw an ancient, foreign type I couldn't recognize. I pressed my hand flat on the title page and saw nothing. I closed my eyes, clenched them shut, and pressed my hand down hard on the page. Nothing.

I didn't understand why Eric allowed me to build some control over my ability; it didn't make any sense. Perhaps it was because we shared a connection now because he fed me… I did not know. But he gave me a power I had never had before, and the lack of vulnerability he gave me made my heart surge and thump hard in my chest. _Ironic,_ I thought. A deadly vampire made me feel safe from the rest of the world.

Thinking of him, I saw a field before me. The rug was no longer flat, ornate patches of red, gold, and blue, but instead rugged tufts of bright green grass. I reached out with the hand that wasn't touching the book; I felt the sharp but soft blades on the palm of my hand. Several feet from me—where the bookshelf stood in reality—I saw a tall spruce tree waver in the wind. Its branches were covered in dense needles that looked nearly blue in the overcast weather. The same breeze that shook the spruce brushed through my hair and sent ripples through my blouse. I looked behind me, no longer seeing the bed or the armoire or anything else that had once been in the chamber in which I was locked.

My eyes drew up toward the sky as the sun sunk speedily into the horizon and night lurched into the air. Seconds passed and the sun came again, then the night, then the sun. The days flew by and the weather cooled; I felt the seasons changing gradually around me. I turned quickly when I heard the rattle of wood sound behind me. One middle-aged man in woolen clothing dismounted from a horse that carried a cart, and another younger one jumped from the cart. They both drew axes from the back of the cart and walked toward the tree. Both walked through me as though I were only a shadow in the open field, and they set to chopping down the spruce.

"Se Dex me gart, vuel savoir!" The younger man exclaimed. Their words sounded vaguely French, but I was unsure. I'd only ever heard French-Creole, and that hardly sounded like what they were speaking. Judging by their knee-length tunics and linen caps, it did not appear as though these men were from the modern era. Was I seeing the past of what I touched? The book?

I remembered from junior high school a science teacher had told us books were made from the wood pulp of mostly softwood trees, like the spruce tree. _Is this the origins of the book in my hands?_

"Georgina," I heard a familiar voice call from another plane. I looked around and wondered if the voice came from this world or that of the past, but the two workers did not seem to hear it.

I dropped the book and met reality again, opening my eyes to Eric's—who was leaning over me and studying me.

"Christ's nails, Eric!" I squealed, shocked by his instant closeness. I took a deep breath and steadied myself. "Lord forgive me for takin' His name in vain."

"What did you see?"

"Did you even care to knock?" I asked. His silence hinted at the answer. "You really have a problem respectin' people's privacy, Eric."

"I was actually hoping to walk in on you doing something private."

"What is wrong with you?"

"Do you have to use the bathroom?" Eric asked like he would ask a child he was given care of. I shook my head; whenever I did have to go, I would knock at the door and a tall man would lead me down the hall. In what I estimated was five hours ago, I had harassed the guard and asked to go six times in one hour.

"What do y'want, Eric?" I asked him petulantly.

"To get answers out of you that you won't give to Russell," Eric replied in a hushed voice, as though he didn't want anyone to hear. The doors were nearly seven inches thick and surely soundproof, but still he whispered his response.

"Why would I be givin' _you_ answers?" I asked, raising my brow.

"Because I am the only one who's going to get you out of this house, and I want to know what you are before I let you out into the world," he stated.

"You know I don't know what I am, Eric," I said peaceably, catching his eyes. "But I suppose if y'want to get as much as you can out of me, that's fair. Can y'get a game or something? I'm as bored as a nun locked up in here."

* * *

"That ain't a word!" I exclaimed, looking at what Eric had laid down on the Scrabble board.

"Yes it is," Eric laughed lowly.

" _Chutzpah?"_ I asked with incredulous eyes. I sighed complacently. "Fine. Serves me right for playin' Scrabble with a thousand year-old vampire."

"Georgina, answer my last question," Eric ordered, and I now sighed with exhaustion.

"What was it again?"

"Can you do what Sookie does?"

"Read minds, y'mean?" I asked and he nodded. "No, I can't do none of that thankfully. It's only the touching."

"Dimension and time traveling?"

"Come on now, it ain't time traveling! I can just… read the past of things and sometimes— _sometimes—_ bring it to life like you've seen," I said, looking at the board when a slight blush rose to my cheeks; for every time he'd seen it, it was when we were relatively intimate. I refocused on my tiles and laid down 'ibex.'

"You're not bad at Scrabble," Eric responded to my move. "I'm just much better."

"You're too humble."

"Is it just touching that brings images?" Eric asked.

"No," I shook my head. "It ain't. Sometimes I can communicate memories and senses… And I usually don't mean to. But I can put scary things in people's heads—or pretty things, sad things, I s'pose. I usually just do it when I'm desperate."

"Like what you put in Pam's mind?"

"Pam told you that?" I asked with wide eyes. He only smiled as though I were a fool for believing Pam would keep something to herself. "Well, I don't even know what that was. It was some ancient memory—like a book never checked out in a library. And I don't even think it's mine, y'know. I don't know what it was or where it's from."

Eric held out his open palm. "Can you give it to me?"

I laughed. "You know it don't work like that, Eric. And even if I could, I wouldn't want to give it to you."

"Just try," he urged, inching his hand closer. I pursed my lips before reaching out, letting my small hand tentatively land in his. I felt his fingers twist around mine and tighten into a secure hold of hand. I closed my eyes and focused, steadying my brain. I felt like I was riffling through files, lost amongst flying papers. _How did I get the memory of the book?_ I asked myself. The answer was thinking of Eric.

And so I opened my eyes and the moment our pupils met something lurched into my head; the file revealed itself. The beautiful creatures died and drained; blood and tears pooled as one and met the earth, yielding wildflowers of reds and oranges and purples and pinks. Eric's hand tightened on mine when a wail ripped through the air; it was beautiful but so painful my chest hurt with the ache of approaching tears. _I won't cry in front of him,_ I thought, and the memory washed away.

Eric abruptly stood, sending his chair flying backward behind him. The Scrabble pieces knocked against one another and skidded across the board. He turned around and set his hand on the mantle. I heard the rock crunch lightly under his grip.

"What's wrong?" I asked, standing up from my seat.

"That is not your memory," Eric answered. He turned around and looked at me, and a hint of sorrow shadowed beneath his long, fair lashes. "I've been told that story before."

"Story?"

"It's a chronicle—an account. Very few know about it, and it's not recorded in mythology; it's hardly recorded at all. But it happened around the birth of Christ, occurring long before I was even born."

"Then how do you know about it?"

Eric hesitated before answering: "Godric. He was there for it."

"What happened in it?"

"It's a long story, but I'll still start from the beginning," he sighed. "Manannán was a sea deity from ancient Ireland, and his wife was Fand, the Faerie Queen. Fand came from an otherworldly island, later to be made the Isle of Man. Their children lived beneath the land in palaces. The druids believed they caused all the ruckus in the universe—toying with the sea and rainfall, playing tricks on farmers, making the earth shake above them. The people believed they made nightmares and dreams, false hope, ambition, agony, suffering, and sorrow. Fand was called the Tear of Beauty before she was called Faerie Queen, and she put darkness in her children—"

"Eric, this just sounds like a myth—"

"It starts that way, but listen to me and don't interrupt. The children of Fand and Manannán were the water fae. Their palaces beneath the land was only a human attempt to explain their operations on a different dimension," Eric explained, but I still felt great doubt for this tale. "This is only one of the origin stories—the one Godric told me. Myths about water creatures exist in every ancient culture—the naiades and sirens in Greek, the Nine Daughters of Ægir in Norse, Morgens in Celtic, the Neck in Germanic, the Camenae in Roman, rusalki in Slavic… they are a golden thread through every ancient mythology. And they were real."

"Eric, this is crazy."

"Anymore crazy than a vampire? A werewolf?" He questioned me. I opened my mouth at that, but nothing came out. "You have no idea what else is out there. And the water fae are something that existed once."

"Then what happened to 'em?" I asked, biting the inside of my lip.

"Humans," Eric glowered. "Drained them of their blood and tears. Have you ever heard of the Fountain of Youth?"

My eyebrows furrowed in thought, but I remembered something from some history books left behind by Gran that I had perused. Spanish conquistadors looting and burning and conquering for gold, diamonds, slaves, and youth. "Ain't that the mythical spring all the conquistadors searched for but never found?" I cracked my head for answers, then made a revelation. "Ponce de Leon!"

Eric smiled at me like a teacher smiles at a student who correctly answered a question. "Good. But it predates Juan Ponce de Leon… All the way back to five thousand years before the birth of Christ. Chronicles, poets, explorers, narrators, storytellers, discoverers all thought it was somewhere, but it never was. It was someone. The tears and blood of the water fae were salvation, immortality, eternity, and joy. And no one realized this but one man, and his name was Cú Chulainn. He was an Irish hero; a demigod by Irish folklore. His destruction of the water fae is hidden in a story from the Ulster cycle, one of the four cycles of Irish mythology. The story is called The Sick-Bed of Cú Chulainn, in which Cú Chulainn shoots down Fand and one of her daughters disguised as birds so he may make a beautiful cloak for his wife. Fand and her daughter survive, then beat Cú Chulainn with horsewhips as punishment. However, Fand's daughter returns and asks for his assistance in battle; in return, she promises him good health and longevity. Cú Chulainn agrees and assists Fand's daughter in her request, but when he is finished he captures her and all her siblings. He ties them to stilts of wood and drains them of their blood and tears until they are leather-skinned skeletons. From their tears bloom flowers, and from their blood blooms eternal life."

I had sunken quite a distance downward in my chair by the time Eric finished his story, but did not notice my posture when I met his eyes again. They appeared hard and cold, like the ice they resembled so closely in color. "In school they teach you about people from past worlds, y'know—ancient religions, primitive peoples they say some of 'em, and others quite complex," I said, mindlessly letting words fall from my mouth. My voice was only a mouthpiece to consciousness now. "But it all feels so very removed. Like none of it never happened, and like no one ain't never believed in it. That's why I like you folk."

"Us _folk_?" Eric clarified.

"You've seen everything. I mean I liked history classes in high school, but one of you's like a living, breathing book," I stood up, taking a step toward him. "Just spittin' out memories from a couple hundred years ago like they happened yesterday. Y'all are so…"

"Immortal?" He offered.

"No… Natural," I shrugged. "You're as natural as the ocean. Never-ending, abiding depths, stories ain't no one never heard of or looked at. I'll tell you—I don't know what those Godforsaken churches claimin' you're things of the Devil are talking 'bout, but I can't think of a creation made by the Lord more beautiful and incredible than your kind. And I know what I told you—that the lives that end are the most beautiful. I still stick to that, but I'll be damned if their ain't somethin' near holy about what you are. It is heavenly."

Eric reached out his arm only half its length. I hadn't realized how closely I'd drawn to him, and he pulled me toward him by the elbow with ease. I felt his hand on my forehead—his palm landing on my eyebrow. I hadn't the nerve to meet his eyes, but I could feel him sinking into me; he was achingly present.

"You should have met him," he stated vaguely. His hand quickly dropped to my jaw and tilted my head upward. I had no choice but to look at him directly.

"Who?" I asked quietly.

"Godric," he answered. "He had faith in the human race through all his years. You're why."

No longer did I feel fear to in greeting his eyes. I saw his bottom lids redden with the onset of blood. His pallor always contributed to the pinkness beneath his eyes, but now I saw he neared great sorrow at the thought of Godric. He looked down at the ground between us and I saw the Adam's apple of his throat barely waver. _Fuck whoever says vampires can't feel,_ I thought.

Just enough for one tear of blood curled into the cave between the bridge of his nose and his right eye. Courageously, I reached out my thumb and swiped it away. I pulled away my hand and looked at the bead of blood that built into a round droplet right on the curve of my finger.

I brought my thumb to my lips and let the blood meet my tongue. It may have been a strange reaction, but it didn't matter to me. I knew it was what I wanted to do, and slowly I fell into a spell of listening to myself. For a moment it was just him and I, and when I felt his mouth on mine that credence persisted.


	8. Dixieland Delight

Whenever I felt my mind flutter to Eric's past, I tightened my grip on him with the greatest strength I could muster. He didn't seemed at all disturbed by the pressure. I powered through glimpses of women pressed against walls and pillows and tables, with their irises rolling up into their eyelids in pleasure—fading into fleshy horizons like pastel suns—and breathy pulses of air leaving their parted lips—pants of wolves having run through rough terrain. They were all beautiful, but I didn't focus on that. I focused on myself, for perhaps the first time in many years.

His mouth filled mine with the taste of wind rushing through minty forests. I could feel the green on him—the blue of ocean, the white of moonlight, the red of blood, and even the gold of the sun from which he had parted so long ago. He abandoned the speed of his kind and worked with the slow familiarity of human nature; he moved with a softness I thought forgotten and a passion I thought relinquished. I reduced him to colors, tastes, and scents; the memories I took were only shadows lost to the sun.

I was tall in height—several inches taller than Sookie and much closer to Jason by comparison—but Eric still towered over me. His hands securely grasped my waist and sat me on the edge of the bed. I felt a roll of butterflies flitting around in my stomach when his cold, large hand curved around my upper thigh, pushing me farther into the bed and wrinkling the sheets beneath me. I boldly looped my forearm around his neck and pulled him down over me. In the blink of an eye my head collapsed on the pillow; he'd moved us both up with a quick jolt of movement. As much as my stomach and heart warmed to him, nerves still welled like a growing tear in my throat. I could've really used a drink to tame my nerves.

"You want a drink?" Eric laughed above me. My eyes opened and widened while my mouth parted. My lips felt red and wet and warm, like the bloom of a carnation in May rainfall.

"What?" I breathed. "How did you know that?"

"I can feel your emotions keenly. It's odd, to be completely honest," he admitted, looking at my forehead. He reached to smooth a tuft of lively orange hair. "It feels almost telepathic."

"You can read my thoughts?" I asked.

"No, but every drifting emotion I can feel—no matter how severe or transient. I've felt your tedium through the past two days, and it even made me feel a bit bored at times. I came to your room because I felt a revelation, and I found it was when you were seeing the past."

The corners of my lips turned up in a smile. "Really?"

"Yes," he smiled. It was beautiful to see him smile; he so rarely did. I reached up to his lips and brushed the top of my finger along the edge of his teeth. His brow furrowed and his nose scrunched in a quick movement, and his fangs emerged. They were beautiful and white as swan feathers—pointed to a pristine tip. I pressed my thumb to the tip of one and pressed into it, splitting the skin slowly and permitting a red bead.

"Is this what th'whole fuss is about?" I examined the droplet between our close faces and felt the rumble of chuckle in his chest above me. In an exchange, I promised the blood to his lips. His mouth met mine and it was hot—so unlike the rest of him. He regained a pace I expected, and soon he devoured me; he sunk deeply into my mouth and pulled my body against his with urgent hands. I could feel his fangs against my skin as he kissed down my neck, leaving faint lips of blood and wet patches where he spent the most time.

One of his hands dropped to my hip, and he tugged upward so my pelvis crushed into his. I could feel him there, but any pride I had in arousing him was overshadowed by my squeamish virginity. It was not the past I saw in him that stopped me now, but my own girlishness.

"Don't be ashamed of it," I heard him say after our lips broke. I dropped my eyes low so they appeared closed. I could only see the contact between our garments.

"How do you know?" I asked him, feeling hot blood rush to my cheeks.

"I can taste it," Eric answered. I felt one of his hands curl around my ear.

I looked up and met his eyes with scrutiny. "You ain't _that_ experienced."

"It's not experience. It's your blood. The blood of virgins is the sweetest. It's one of the reasons why virgins were sacrificed in ancient times. Virgins' blood was too pure and sweet for this world, so it was given to the gods."

He kissed my forehead again, leaning up on his knees. I sat up on my hands and wiggled toward him as he retracted his fangs. "I lied to you," I admitted.

Eric looked up at me quizzically. His hand reached for my waist as he pulled me to his side. I felt perfectly content there. I leant my cheek on the hard curve of his shoulder. "About what?"

"I'll tell you. But can you do something for me if I tell you?"

"Depends on what it is," he smiled snakily.

"Stay in here through the day," I answered quietly. "It's awful lonely in here. I won't bother you none. I'll just read. But I don't like bein' in here all night and day alone."

"Okay," he nodded, his smile sinking into a genuine version of itself. "What did you lie about?"

I swallowed. This was my last secret to give. "I can bring some things back to life."

"What?" He answered loudly, eyes bulging. I internally leapt for joy upon discovering that I'd surprised a thousand year-old vampire.

"It's only happened twice—to my knowledge. And so far it's only been plants."

"I am going to get the bleeds if you keep puttering around down there and waking me up," I heard Eric's deep and moderately irritated voice from the bed. I looked up at him with wide eyes and saw him watching me from the side of the bed. I had a chess board in my lap and was playing myself as quietly as possible.

"I'm not makin' any noise!" I exclaimed.

"You are in _my_ ears," he sighed, rolling onto his back. "Why don't you just sleep, too?"

"I ain't tired!"

"We can do something that will wear you out," I could hear the grin in his voice when he said it. A flush of pink rose to my cheek and I looked back to the ivory-and-obsidian chess board.

"Stop talkin' nasty like that!" I fought. "But I do have a better idea."

I walked to the silver doors and cracked them open, catching sight of the tall guard who manned the door. "Excuse me, Mister Guard, sir?"

"Yes? Do you have to go to the bathroom?"

"No," I grinned. "How are you? We haven't talked in a while."

"Is there something I can get you, Miss?"

"Yes sir. Do y'know if Mister Edgington has any wine in the house?" I asked.

"Yes, Miss. Would you like a glass of red or white?" He asked.

"White, please. And a bottle."

"Yes, Miss."

I smiled and shut the door behind me. Eric watched me carefully as I went back to the bookshelf, trying to find a title I hadn't noticed before. The wine arrived quickly, and I poured myself a glass and went back to the bookshelf. I felt eyes on me and turned around, seeing Eric still watching me. I looked back to the colorful bindings of books and opened my mouth: "Do you miss it?"

"Miss what?" He asked.

"Wine," I answered. "Or, sorry—mead? What is it you folk drank?"

"Ale, mostly."

"Ale, like beer?"

Eric laughed. "Sort of. In my times, beer was an umbrella term for sweet beverages, like ciders. Sometimes there were fruit wines. Never grape, but other kinds. They were rare though, usually at weddings and some feasts. The wealthiest and most powerful men drank the wine; Odin lived off only wine. And sometimes there was mead—more common than wine but much less than ale."

"Do you miss it?"

"I can't remember the taste anymore. And I wouldn't want it, if I could have it. It would remind me of home," he said.

I laughed lightly, turning to look at him. "Is that such a bad thing?"

Eric responded only with silence, repositioning himself in the bed so his face turned away from me. I hadn't meant to hurt him, but I couldn't experience what he felt for what he'd lost. When I thought of Gran, I was happy. The only time I avoided her memory was when I saw something bad—like I had seen the blood on the floor of the kitchen at home. Usually, however, our memories were sweet like sap, but hardened and untouchable from the inside. The light they reflected was beautiful still, though; scattering flecks of amber touched golden by the sun. I didn't expect a thousand-year removal from my family would be the same as it was for me with Gran, but I simply couldn't see why he wouldn't want to remember them.

Warmed by the wine, I reached out my hand and touched Eric's arm. He didn't react to my touch; I rounded the bed and crawled into the empty side. Figuring he didn't need the warmth of the duvet, I tugged it from its lax draping over his waist and bundled myself in it. I wiggled off the pants and kicked them to the floor, subsequently curling into a tight ball and closing my eyes as my head hit the pillow. I forced myself into a land of obscure and filmy thoughts that I hoped would tug me along into sleep, but only ended up squirming. I peaked with one eye open and saw an annoyed look hanging above Eric's closed eyes in his eyebrows.

"Sorry," I whispered.

"Why do you keep moving?" He asked in a steady tone.

"Gran said I'm like a beaver. I got to make myself a cozy nest before I sleep in it. This bed just ain't as soft as mine. I can't nest in it," I grunted, turning over in the swaddle of blankets and limbs I made myself. Eric only hummed in response, but I saw one corner of his lips curl upwards minutely. "When I was little I used to steal all of Jason an' Sookie's pillows and build towers of 'em around me. 'Fore Jason cared so much what people thought of him, he would curl up in there with me. But Sookie would wake up right up and snatch the pillows from under our heads when we was sleepin'."

At this I received a smile with teeth. I studied Eric's position on his back. He didn't look comfortable at all—no wonder he couldn't sleep… And there was my constant chatter, too. "Still can't sleep?"

"Georgina!" Eric exclaimed as his eyes opened widely.

"Sorry, sorry!" I backed off. An idea sprung into my head as he attempted to drop back into attempted sleep. I gripped the pillows hard with my hands, thinking of Eric and the wrinkles in his nose when he smiled. The pillows' last sleeper's dream came to me—dark, quiet, peaceful, and a little cold, like a forest in the dawn of winter. I saw it all in my head when I closed my eyes—the dreamer's dream was mine.

"Come 'ere, Eric," I asked, keeping my eyes shut but reaching out. My hand landed on his blanketed space between us.

"For what?"

"Please," I urged quietly. He shifted toward me in the bed. By the time I swore if he breathed I would've felt his breath on my face, I reached up for where I believed his ear would have been. Successfully, my fingers curled around it and I shared the dream with him. "Do you feel it?" I spoke with an intake of breath.

"Yes," he sighed. In his newfound peace, I felt his arm curl around my torso and pull me into a caged embrace. Settled with my atypical nest, a natural tiredness overcame me. With his nose nuzzled into my hair, I left the day and descended into my own manmade night. But while I drifted away I could not help but feel milked. I had offered my solace to him and I admitted to that, but I reduced his embrace to its bones: Eric finding sleep in my abilities. It didn't have to do with me, because who I was and what I could do were always separate entities in my mind And I thought about what I gave him and the times when our greatest intimacies lurched out into the air; it rarely ever had to do with me, only my abilities.

It took Eric a little bit longer to discover Sookie wasn't the only girl living under Gran's roof with qualities that could only be distracted as supernatural. And when Sookie was pulled off the market by Bill, maybe Eric picked up what he could—the leftovers. In my dreams I surely gnawed on the inside of my lips; memories resurfaced of Eric leaving me in a rush because of _Sookie_ , Eric leaving me without a word because of _Sookie,_ Eric watching me being pushed aside by _Sookie,_ Eric showing up at Gran's house for _Sookie…_

* * *

The tall man who stood outside my door yanked me out of sleep with his hand wrapped tightly around my arm. My free hand flew out to slap whoever had woken me, but a strong hand around my wrist halted its movement.

"Hey!" I wriggled in the grip, opening my eyes to see Eric pulling me out of bed. He stood beside the guard, who helped stand me up once I forcibly stood. "Ain't you got some respect for the sleeping?"

I expected a wry response from Eric but received nothing. The tall man reached for my wide-leg trousers and attempted to put them on me, but Eric pushed him away and did the job himself.

"Go tell Russell she's on her way down," Eric told the man, who speedily disappeared in a quick flash of motion.

"You're as slick as owl shit, Eric Northman. You're going to get me out of here—my ass!"

"Georgina, listen to me very carefully," Eric looked me dead in the eyes once my bottoms were secured around my hips. "Do not act out in front of Russell. I wasn't lying when I said I'd get you out of here, but there's something I need to do first. You can't come in the way of this, do you understand?"

I felt his fingers making bruises in my arm under his grip. Slowly, I nodded. He left one hand around my upper arm and pulled me from the room. My directional senses failed me as he tugged us through numerous hallways; I only gained recognition when we reached the top of the master staircase. In the antechamber at the base of the stairs, I saw Sookie and Bill.

"Gee?" Sookie shouted at my introduction into the scene.

"Sook?" I responded.

Eric grip tightened and I swore the blood stopped pulsing through my forearm. "Remember," he spoke through teeth clenched shut.

"Remember what, Mr. Northman?" Russell echoed from downstairs. I just now noticed him at the bottom, looking up at Eric and me.

"Only not to act out," Eric answered calmly.

Another figure materialized behind me. It was a woman—dark-featured but ivory of skin. Her dark cat eyes widened at the sight of someone in the room, and I followed her eyes to Bill. "What's he done?" The woman asked in a distinct accent. It was not foreign but an archaic strain of Southern—velvety and old.

"Hiding something _very_ interesting from us all," Russell answered. It hardly seemed as though a second passed before Bill planting a makeshift stake into the tall man's chest. I only blinked, and by that time he was an explosive mass of vampiric viscera. Elastic stretches of red and clotted black flung out across the room and scattered in messy shapes upon the floor. Bill made some sad attempt to mount Russell, but the senior vampire made a stealthy and easy escape. Bill was flung across the antechamber and collapsed onto the stairwell, breaking the wood and sending breezes of flying dust.

"Are you serious?" Russell laughed—fangs very much present. "I am almost three thousand years old!"

Sookie ran toward Bill, seemingly renewed in her love for him. To my knowledge, he had ended things; however, this appeared to be no longer the case. Eric materialized in front of her, blocking her passage. Eric took her arm like he had taken mine, but Sookie struggled with a much greater passion than that I had.

The foreign man—who quite evidently played the role of housekeeper in his relationship with Russell—stomped his foot on the ground. "Does our home mean nothing to you, Russell?!" He cried, heading toward the stairs. He feet angrily met each stair as he ascended, whilst muttering oaths in his native tongue.

"Eric, what are you doin'?!" She fought.

He brought her to Russell. "This is the right one. I wouldn't get rid of her if I were you."

"Have you tasted her?" Russell inquired, looking to Eric's guidance.

"I haven't, unfortunately. But I expect great things, seeing her peculiar talents. She is most definitely supernatural."

"I know," Russell responded with his careful tact. "And I wonder what supernatural qualities she shares with Miss Georgina. Have you any idea?"

"I've spent a fair amount of time with Georgina, my king. Nothing is out of the ordinary, and her story rings true. She is human, that is all."

"Have you tasted her?" He asked.

"Yes," Eric lied. The only taste he had had of me was a droplet of blood from my pierced finger. "Delicious, but nothing special."

Russell allowed a snakelike grin to meet his pale face. He met eyes with Sookie, looking at her as though she were the most delicious meal he'd encountered in a long while. "Hugo," he addressed a guard. "Bring her to the library. Her and I have much to discuss."

"We ain't got nothing to discuss!" Sookie argued hopelessly.

"We do," Russell sighed. "But first I have to repair what remains of my marriage. Hugo, wait with her until I arrive. It should't be long."

Following his partner, Russell ascended as well. At me he stopped, squinting his eyes and examining closely. "Do you truly not share Sookie's… strange abilities? It would be must better off if you told the truth now. So much less trouble to sort."

"I ain't got no powers, Mister Edgington," I spoke in the mildest voice I could maintain.

"And Sookie? Does she have any powers?"

"I won't speak for her," I answered truthfully.

"I respect your individuality, Miss Stackhouse," he replied before continuing up the stairs. I noticed now that he had lost interest in me, he had acknowledged my rightful surname.

"What should we do with Georgina, my king?" Eric called from downstairs. I almost imagined him giving Russell an apple, being the teacher's pet that he was. "Release her?"

"Yes," he answered, keeping his leisurely pace. Eric's eyes met mine across the antechamber as he fulfilled his promise of getting me out. "On second thought—don't. I have great trust in you, Eric, but I worry about your trust in her. I wish to keep her around for a while longer, just for good measure. Jacques, take her up!"

* * *

Tara knocked against the wall separating us. It had begun with my tedious knocking against the wall with the sharp curve of my knuckles in a long-forgotten tune. Tara had seemingly heard, and knocked at her unknown neighboring prisoner in response. I'd had no clue that she was here at Russell's manor in Mississippi, nor why, but it didn't matter. That was to be revealed when we escaped together, according to our morse messages.

When Tara and I wound up in the same trigonometry class in ninth grade, we found ourselves separated from one another by the teacher. Tara sat alone at one side of the classroom, whilst I sat at the opposite side. When we began tapping the tune to our shared favorite song together one class using our sneakers on the metal chair legs, we resolved to communicate through each class. Everyday after school we gathered at Gran's to learn and practice. We'd never told Sookie in the hopes of keeping one thing between us.

 _I'm getting us out of here,_ Tara said through long and short series of taps.

 _How?_

 _I just am. When the time comes, be ready._

 _Okay. Are you alright?_

 _No, but I'll explain later. Are you alright?_

 _Just glad Russell lost interest in me. Sookie is still in dangerous waters, though._

 _We'll get her too. We have to._

 _I know. Good luck._

 _You too._

 _I'll be ready when you come._

Relying on Eric to get me out now seemed like a distant figure in the horizon. It scared me how his adoration for Sookie could drop in a heartbeat, and how he feigned such an intense faith to Russell. And my earlier thoughts still hung over my mind like long shadows in the evening—what about me did he want? Myself or my abilities? Thinking of how impossible it would be to get a legitimate answer to this question, I decided I could not lean on him. Eric promised me a way out of Russell's manor, but that didn't mean his way was the only way out.

I crawled into bed and laid there with my eyes wide open. No tiredness had grown on me during my short and sweet trip on the staircase; sleeping was not an option. For a while, I only kept my ear against the pillow. The indent Eric had made in the pillow was still present—white silk sunken concave into plush feather. My fingers slipped into the crater tentatively, and touching where he'd been gave me flashes of the sea. In blinks, I saw whitecaps slamming against the long wooden panels of a longship. Nearly a hundred oars slapped into the tumultuous mouths of black water, sinking in like a knife, and pushing. Rain pelted down on the sea in steady streams, as though the dark sky was weeping over its watery mirror below.

Time passed at a glacial pace, and I lay with my eyes open as the day surely slipped into night. Through hours beneath the moon I read one of the few English books in the room—an ancient copy of the Canterbury Tales. I faced great adversity picking apart each line and comprehending its meaning, but the hours that passed permitted such inspection.

When I lay in my bed trying to will myself to sleep, I caught the sound of shouts and thunks of steel. I stood from the bed and walked toward the door, poking it open slightly. Hugo was gone and Jacques had been reassigned to guard my room, but he was nowhere to be seen. I pushed the door open further and stepped into the hallway, looking both ways. It was empty.

After a gulp of courage, I tried to retrace my steps toward the grand staircase that led to the antechamber. Most of the times I'd been taken there had been at the speed of a running vampire, and I hadn't had time to observe my surroundings and memorize them. However, when Jacques had led me back to my room I'd taken careful note of each hall and turn. With this to reflect on, I very cautiously and quietly made it to the stop of the staircase.

Shards of golden light streamed in through the rectangular windows flanking the massive front door. The color was premature and purpling at the edges, telling me it was no more than the early approach of dawn. My steps down the stairs were agonizing—avoiding every creek I could predict. I held the railing in a tight grip, occasionally seeing past ascenders and descenders. I watched slippered feet descend and memorized where every creak had sounded; I caught heel shoes walk up, and imprinted in my mind where the stiletto produced the loudest yawns in the wood. I stepped around each one and made it to the marble floor of the antechamber without having made a sound.

With my hand on the handle of the door, I stopped myself. Tara had planned to rescue me and take me with her, and there was the chance she and Sookie had managed to take out one guard and get down the hallway, but now I heard nothing. Most likely, they were restrained and shoved back in their rooms; it was only a matter of time before Jacques discovered I was no longer in my room, or whatever guard would be covering his shift now that the day had arrived in its purple veil. I decided to proceed, figuring getting one chicken out of the henhouse was better than none.

I opened the door so slowly it didn't make a single sound, slipped out through a crack no bigger than a foot, then closed it behind me. The daylight felt so fresh on my skin I wanted to cry; I could never imagine how vampires lived centuries without a kiss of the sun. Only a few days of deprivation felt like a month of darkness.

I took off with all the speed I could muster. The lofty pants and loose blouse gave me freedom of limbs, and I could hear them rippling in tight cracks as the wind whipped through them. The earth felt nonexistent beneath my feet—they were more air-bound in sprinting steps than not. I had never seen the house aside from what was inside it, as I'd been unconscious upon delivery. I now saw a massive flat of ripe green grass spread before the house, which I hadn't had time to look back upon. At the edges of the tightly-mowed field stood a thin wood—only a framing that kept the manor concealed. I saw some movement between the thick trunks of trees and only quickened my pace, only heading in the opposite direction from which I came.

The snarling of wolves was soon an unavoidable aspect of the world around me. I had no choice but to try and outrun them and never look behind. I could hear the yelps from my heels as I kicked up dirt behind me. I took a sharp right and was almost caught by one that leapt and caught only my blouse; the cloth ripped and the wolf scrambled back around, the cream-colored cloth hanging from his jaw.

I kept running until I neared the boundaries of the estate. There were no fences—only an open area where a wide sand road split the grass in half. As though the wolfs wore shock collars, they stopped their chase at the road. Turning around finally after having crossed the road, I saw three large wolves. Their coats were all dark and shaggy, and their eyes were wild with the scent of pumping blood. Their chests heaved as they turned, backing into the thick rows of oaks that sat along the edges of the estate. I watched their tails disappear into the shadow cast by the foliage.

I leant over on my knees and caught my breath. I reached to where my shirt had been torn by the wolf and felt a moist patch on the skin it exposed. I pulled away my hand and examined the blood that was now coating three of my fingers; I hadn't realized it, but the wolf must have gotten some of me. It didn't hurt much to my surprise, and I tried to forget it until I secured some personal safety. But that was a long way away, as I couldn't leave knowing Sookie and Tara were still in the cold, pale hands of Russell Edgington. I only looked up at the sun and then down the sand road. Tactlessly, I walked down the road, hoping something of worth awaited me at the end of it.


End file.
